Family Ties
by Sinister Scribe
Summary: Carmen and Benicio's story. Sequel to 'Family Secret'. Lot's of language and adult themes, actions, mimes and Huddy plus twinny action whenever i can manage it.
1. Chapter 1

**Nyah-hah! Here I am with the promised sequel. At least, the first chapter there of. This was fun to write. I don't know if it's, strictly speaking, in character but I had a good time so poop if you don't like it. **

**My first ever sequel, I never thought I'd get around to writing one. **

**Oh, and thanks very much to Eleanor J for nominating me for an award, that's nice (inane grin). **

**Thanks to everyone else for all the reviews to the last chapter of 'Family Secret' aaaannnd…I hope you like this one as well. **

**Anyways, set a day or three after the end of 'Family Secret'. No House or twins in this chapter, but Cuddy makes a sharp appearance (I'm so funny I crack myself up sometimes…you'll get it if you read on). **

**BTW I am SO doing a Harry Dresden/House crossover…as soon as I finish all this other junk that I've got on…sigh. I'll just write the idea down for later then. **

**Pout. **

**Anyways, read and review peeps! **

**Baby Steps**

"Babe, you awake?"

Carmen House groaned and rolled deeper into her warm nest of duvet. "No." Her cultured English accent was roughened with sleep and she felt the chuckle roll down his arm from his deep chest and thrum through his palm into her back. He gripped the curve of her hip and rolled her onto her back. He swept a silky length of fiery blonde hair out of her eyes and grinned down at her, the line of his bright smile shocking white out of his tanned face. She reached up and swept some unruly dark brown curls out of his eyes. "You need a haircut."

"I'm going for the caveman look." He told her and dropped a kiss on her lips. "You going to come out to construction today? The place is looking good. We got all the floors lain and all the wiring in. you can be let loose with a paint can as soon as the plastering is finished." He bobbed his eyebrows at her in what he had no doubts was one of his more charming expressions.

She stretched languidly and flopped her arms over her head. "We might…if I can convince him to come inside this time."

Benicio was silent a moment as he looked to the door of their bedroom. He imagined he could see right through the wood and into the room opposite to where the sleeping form of Ram was no doubt back under the bed. He turned to look back at the gorgeous woman stretched out on his bed. A smile curled her full mouth and her hands went to his belly. They were warm through his flannel shirt and stroked over the cobbled muscles of his belly. He caught her wrist.

"Behave yourself." He scolded her and she pouted, but turned her hand in his so that their fingers laced together. "Do you think he's getting better?" He asked her.

She inhaled deeply as she thought about her adoptive charge. The paper work still had to come through, but in her mind, the decision was already final. No way was she letting Ram go back to the foster homes. "It'll be slow but he's already come a long way. Did you see how he sat next to you in the truck last night?" She smiled. "Baby steps."

Benicio smiled slightly. Ram had only been staying with them a few days, but the little tyke's trust already meant a lot to him. "Yeah. I suppose it's pretty scary at the site with all the guys around."

She nodded and then tugged him closer with a sudden smile. "Come here and kiss me before I'm forced to make you late for work."

He grinned and dropped another kiss on her lips. Going back for seconds when her arms wrapped around his neck and her fingers tangled in his hair with a small hum of pleasure. She shoved him away before she became too committed to the action and he chuckled at her. He rolled from the bed and straightened his shirt with a single tug. He jingled his truck's keys out of his pocket and pulled his baseball cap down over his hair. Maybe it was getting a bit long. He clomped to the door, his steps heavy in his work boots and turned in time to see her head tilted as she checked out the fit of his Levi's over his ass. She grinned, not embarrassed in the slightest and he rolled his eyes. "I love you." He told her by way of farewell and she nodded, her smile changing to a different one but otherwise said nothing. He shut the door quietly behind himself and sighed.

He started along the hallway. He hadn't really expected her to say it back. She still probably wasn't used to him saying it at all. He told her often, the first few times she had insisted that he didn't, after a while she had done nothing whenever he said it and now she just gave that smile. As if he were affirming something she already knew but she took comfort in the reminder. He was confidant she would say it back. He knew she did love him and he wasn't going to stop telling her he did until she realised it wasn't going to go away. He wasn't going to go away.

Baby steps. She would realise it in time.

Benicio whistled to himself as he jogged down the stairs with a thump. Twinkle-toes he wasn't and the tune died on his lips when he did a quick double take to the kitchen. He actually froze in his tracks and stared as he spotted Ram in the kitchen. The young flame haired boy was up on a stool, large apron tied a few times around his skinny waist and his small pink tongue caught between his teeth as he carefully poured steaming hot coffee into a Thermos. Benicio could only stare as the child screwed the lid on and then the cup and then shook out a brown paper bag. He picked up a clingfilm wrapped sandwich (Ben really was starting to spend too much time around Carmen if he was picking up her syntax). Ram placed it in the paper bag, along with an apple, a candy bar and a bag of chips (not crisps). Ram picked up the thermos and bag and hopped down from the stool. He trotted out of the kitchen and Ben frowned as he realised he had no idea what the kid was up to. The apron trailed along the floor and Ram nearly tripped once but righted himself and ran right up to Benicio, stopping mere inches from jean clad legs that were as long as he was tall. He looked up at Ben with huge silver eyes and wordlessly held up the flask and lunch.

Benicio's eyebrows went up so fast they nearly took his cap off. He looked down at Ram and spoke in a gentle voice that he had learned didn't spook the boy.

"For me?"

Ram made a small sound of affirmation and thrust the flask and bag closer to Benicio's hands. Benicio took them and held the boys eyes for a few long seconds. He sank down onto one knee so that he was at eye level. "Thank you." He said and didn't break eye contact.

Ram gave a small smile. The first he'd directed at a male of the species, spun on one heel and then tripped his way towards the kitchen. Benicio straightened when he realised that their morning's interactions was done and headed for the door. Sending one last look back to the child as he wriggled out of the apron. Benicio shook his head on a grin and shut the door with a click behind himself.

Now, if only he could get Carmen to take a leap and a bound like that…

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Carmen stilled under the uncanny feeling of being watched. She snapped open one laser blue eye and a grin spread across her features as she saw a familiar golden skinned, flame haired face regarding her solemnly. She propped herself up on one elbow and smirked down at the boy. "Hey, honey, you up long?"

Ram nodded.

"Okay, breakfast, hmm?" She asked him as she threw back the covers and swung her long legs over the side of the bed. She stilled and bent over as her head spun making a small sound of distress in her throat as she held her temples between her palms. Her stomach rolled like it was strongly considering vacating her body through her throat and she moaned again and pressed a hand to it to attempt to still herself. She was aware of Ram running out of the room on light feet and down the stairs. She wasn't even up to calling after him as he scampered away. It occurred to her she might have frightened him but she was dealing with one thing at a time here.

Padding feet ran back into the room and there was a crinkle of plastic as something was shoved under her nose. Carmen opened her eyes and jerked her head back so that she could focus on the packet of…crackers. She arched a brow at Ram.

"Not right now, darling, I'm not feeling very…" She trailed off as Ram tore a cracker out the packet and thrust it towards her.

"Feel better." He said distinctly and Carmen took the cracker in numb fingers as she stared open mouthed at Ram.

"You just spoke." She told him and he nodded and pushed the cracker towards her mouth insistently.

Carmen took a bite and he smiled. She chewed and swallowed hurriedly before asking. "Why didn't you speak before?"

Ram shrugged and pushed the cracker back towards her when she tried to set it down. She rolled her eyes and ate the thing in three bites. Another pushy male in her life, fabulous. "Say something else." She coaxed him and he shook his head as he handed her another cracker. Glaring at her when she didn't eat. "I'll eat it if you say something." She bargained and he scowled at her.

Pointing imperiously at the cracker he said. "Eat." Carmen hesitated a moment and he folded his arms across his thin chest. She shrugged, a deal was a deal. She ate the cracker. It took her a few moments to realise that she was feeling better. Though if that was anything to do with the crackers or Ram's sudden verbosity, she had no idea. She tilted her head at him. "You feel like saying anything else?"

Ram shook his head. Morning chit chat was apparently over.

Carmen was distracted by a sudden bleat from the bedside phone. She snatched it up on the second ring and spoke directly. "Anne Summer's Customer services."

"Good morning, Carmen." Lisa laughed down the line and Carmen grinned. She sat back against the pillows of Benicio's king size and watched as Ram flicked on the television and clambered up to lean into her as he watched the Saturday morning cartoons. Her eyes flicked to the caller ID and she frowned.

"I thought Saturday was now family day? What are you doing at work?" She accused lightly.

"That's what I was calling about. There was an emergency and the boys are in town doing…well, I'm trying not to think about it but we're having Barbeque tonight, feel like turning up?"

"Hmm, lot's of meat, raw on the inside charred on the outside…how can a girl refuse?" She murmured as she stroked Ram's hair out of his eyes.

"Greg's cooking." Lisa said a trifle warily.

"Greg cooks? Better than me, I suppose, I gave Ram alphabet soup and he spelled out 'HELP'." Carmen grinned at the boy when he turned at the mention of his name. He retaliated by shoving another cracker in her mouth.

"Carmen, you alright?" Lisa asked at the smothered expletive that cracked down the phone line.

There was a crunching sound on the other end before Carmen spoke. "Cracker." She said by way of explanation and Lisa frowned.

"You're eating crackers for breakfast?"

"Not voluntarily, I assure you." Carmen said dryly and shot a look at Ram. He just grinned at her, already knowing she didn't know how to get angry with him.

"What?"

"Ram gave them to me to make me feel better." Carmen told her friend and then shut her eyes on a grimace when she realised what she'd just let slip.

"You're still feeling ill? Why didn't you say?" Lisa demanded in short order.

"Because you would have told, Margo, who would have told Randy who would have shared it with Benicio over some ridiculous male bonding ritual over sawing wood and then he would _literally_ wrap me in cotton wool instead of just figuratively." Carmen explained and heard Lisa sigh down the phone.

"Carmen, we're just worried about you."

"I've managed this long without a brood of mother hens." Carmen pointed out and Lisa resisted the urge to grind her teeth. Her friend could be so _dense_ sometimes.

"We like to worry, that's what family does. Now are you going to come and pick me up so we can go out to the house together and face the huffing masses together or are you going to continue to be difficult?"

"I'm good at difficult…" Carmen mused.

"I'm good at telling Ben you're still ill." Lisa pointed out in a faux innocent tone.

"You ruthless woman!" Carmen accused.

"I've been work, and live, with your brother. Ruthless bargaining comes with the territory." Lisa sat back and played her last card. "Besides, if you don't come and get me I won't be able to share the news."

Carmen sat up a little straighter. "What news?"

"Exactly." Lisa smirked into the phone and then hung up.

Carmen stared at the handset as the dial tone filled her ear. She glared at it and then slung it back into the cradle with a little more force than was strictly necessary and cursed herself when Ram jumped at the sound, turning to look at her with wide eyes. He relaxed slightly when he realised that it was Carmen. He clambered up closer to her and under her arm, resting his tousled head on her shoulder. She looked down at him.

"You're aunt Lisa is an evil, _evil_ woman."

He looked up at her with a frown.

"Okay, so she's not, but she does like to pretend sometimes." She was quiet a beat further. "You want to go out to see Tonio and Niki tonight? Have a barbeque?"

Ram shrugged. "Sounds fun."

Carmen stilled and then looked down at him. The smallest smile tilted his lips and she grinned. The boy wasn't as green as he was cabbage sometimes. "Alright then, Mr Erudite, what say you we watch Mr Fudd one last time and then make tracks?" She asked, hoping he might talk again.

He nodded.

Carmen tilted her head back against the headboard and sighed.

One baby step at a time.

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Carmen scowled at Lisa as her friend mixed mayonnaise into the potato salad.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me that he proposed." Carmen swirled her juice (Lisa had refused to give her wine and Carmen was still sore about it). "There should be a law against that sort of thing."

Lisa rolled her eyes. " I did tell you…eventually. I just thought it was one of those 'tell someone in person' things."

"So…when's the wedding?"

"We've not set a date yet. He only asked me last night. You know the bastard actually got my own kids to press gang me into it?"

Carmen shrugged. "Sounds like Greg." She drank more of her juice and lamented the lack of vodka in it. For some reason, Lisa had banned any and all alcohol passing Carmen's lips tonight. Something that she was working up to being sullen about but couldn't quite find the energy. "Now, are you proud or pissed about this?"

Lisa sighed and continued potato mixing a moment further. An inane smile kicked her lips. "A little of both I suppose."

"Ah…progeny." Carmen said.

"You ever want kids?" Lisa asked and Carmen snorted.

"If I wanted to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet I'd put shoes on a cat."

Lisa gave her a long look and then turned to pointedly look out the back window at Ram running around after the dogs and the twins.

"Shut up." Carmen ordered.

"I didn't say anything." Lisa defended herself as she rummaged in a drawer for something. She half turned to Carmen and then stilled as if seeing something. Carmen looked down at her arm as Lisa took a hold of it and pulled it closer so she could inspect the smooth skin there.

"What do you see?" Carmen asked curiously and then yelped at the sharp pain on the inside of her elbow. "Ouch!" She snapped as Lisa slipped a vial into the needle that was now embedded in Carmen's vein. "What the hell is that for?"

"Keep your voice down you big baby." Lisa said and drew the blood, before removing the needle and passing a disinfectant swab to Carmen to press to the small wound. "And I need your blood to do a test. You've got plenty more." She dismissed it.

"Yes, inside me. Where it _belongs!_" Carmen whimpered ad rubbed at the wound. Damn, that had hurt. "Your bedside manner sucks." She grumped. "I get blood on this Armani and you've had it."

"Well, either I did it, or Greg did it, and I don't remember the last time that man actually did any medical tests himself." Lisa said as she rummaged in her trusty drawer again and whipped out the box. Flipping it over and ripping it open she scanned the instructions and whipped out the white stick.

"Oh hell no!" Carmen snapped the testing kit away from her friend. "I am not pregnant!" She hissed.

"Morning sickness, dizzy spells, fainting and…" Lisa snatched the kit back with a glare. "Mood swings, now hush up and do as your doctor tells you."

"Nazi." Carmen checked her arm before folding it across her chest with a scowl. "I thought you needed to pee on those things."

"Blood works just as well if not better. Though peeing is less dangerous for the general populace."

"Unless you happen to have a doctor in the family that takes her work ethic a little too seriously. Did Benicio put you up to this?"

"No, my brother's an idiot. He thought you had a stomach flu." Lisa dismissed it easily and loaded the test she set it on the counter and rounded on her friend with a smile. "More juice?"

Carmen blinked. "You're psychotic."

Lisa nodded slowly. "Prolonged exposure to Greg. It was bound to happen someday." She shrugged on a grin. "At least I'm enjoying myself."

Carmen's scowl deepened. "You're despicable." She eyes the test like it was radioactive. "Now what?"

"We wait a minute." Lisa glanced at her watch. "What'll you do if you are?"

"Panic about fitting into the dress I was going to wear to your wedding…or run screaming for the hills." Carmen didn't believe for one moment that she was stupid enough to get pregnant. She wasn't mother material. Sure, she was doing okay with Ram, but that was because she knew what he had gone through. To be quite honest, the thought of parenting scared the hell out of her.

"Not many hills around here, you'd have to drive quite a ways." Lisa mused as if giving the matter some serious logistical thought.

"I'll manage somehow." Carmen noted and rubbed absently at the sore spot on her arm. How come the smallest things always hurt the most? This and paper cuts, she decided.

Lisa lifted the test and the instructions. "Minute's up." She announced cheerfully and Carmen rolled her eyes. Lisa was going to be so disappointed, the woman loved babies. She slid her eyes to her friend and went completely still.

"You're fucking joking."


	2. Chapter 2

I just served dinner to two hundred and fifty hungry Americans.

My new job sucks.

Ugh.

For that person that asked, Ben and Carmen have been together for a couple of months, possibly as many as three and Ram's gonna be cool with everything and…I can't remember what else anyone asked.

On a small aside, Benicio is being played by Detective Kepler from CSI (the guy that filled in Grissom's spot when the old man went on sabbatical) and the dude from scream for all you non-CSI fans out there (the few and frightened that you are). Because he and Catherine (Marg Helgenberger/Carmen) had a bit of a thing…how coincidental, hmm?

As to me deleting Random. It happened weeks ago, glad to see you're all paying attention and 'The Inspirationals' is basically the same plot but written in the third person instead of the first and with Nadia in place of Talia. So reach into your pants and untwist those undies.

Rereading Eleanor J's 'Rediscovery' coz it makes me smile (grins) see?

And Prinnie, no time to write hmm? I don't believe you. I have two jobs and I'm cramming for an art school interview. Writing is the only thing that keeps me sane.

Mwaha.

(manic grin)

Read and review.

**Not Joking**

_"You're fucking joking!"_

Carmen stood there, one hand resting on the kitchen countertop and the other clasping her glass of juice half-raised to her lips. Her fiery brow rose as she sipped with deliberate grace and swallowed convulsively before speaking.

"Huh."

Lisa let the tests slap down onto her hip as she dropped her hands down to her sides in surprise. "'Huh'? That's it?"

Carmen shrugged. "You were expecting hysterics?"

Lisa tilted her head and thought about it before speaking slowly. "I suppose not…you _knew."_ She levelled an accusing finger at her friend and Carmen drank her grape juice again and wished for wine once more.

"Of course I knew. I'm not completely stupid. I went to the doctor's yesterday and had the test done." Carmen shrugged again.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Lisa demanded and tossed the test in the trash along with the vial of blood wrapped in a plastic baggie. She planted her hands on her hips and glared at Carmen.

"Because you didn't tell me about being engaged?" Carmen asked back and knew her defence was weak. The opposition was in a tower of righteous indignation…never a good start.

"Have you told Ben yet?"

"No." Carmen drained her glass. "Just because I've known for the last twenty four hours doesn't mean I've adjusted to the information that I'm about to become a parent. Haven't they passed the law that you need a license for this sort of thing yet?"

"Not unless you're a communist." Lisa folded her arms across her chest, still not happy…but ecstatic all at the same time. She loved kids. Especially babies. She was going to spoil her niece and/or nephew rotten. Just as Carmen had been spoiling Tonio and Niki for the last eight years.

"I forgot my Reds tee shirt." Carmen lamented and held up her glass, waggling it at Lisa. "More?"

"When did you transform into Oliver? You know where the fridge is." Lisa told her with a frown and turned back to her potato salad as Carmen sighed cavernously.

"I'm really much more of an Annie, I'd sing 'Tomorrow' but I'm not drunk." Carmen poured herself something more to drink and slammed the fridge shut with one hip. "Actually, I'm more worried about telling Ram. He's just settling in…" Carmen cupped her drink in both hands as she looked out the back windows that took up the majority of the southern wall of the house. Ram and the twins were out playing with the dogs while Greg sat in a lounge chair and drank beer under the pretence of cooking dinner on the open grill of the barbecue. She noted the atrocity that Greg was wearing.

"You bought him that shirt, didn't you?" Carmen accused Lisa and the darker woman grinned. "He's never going to learn if we're both not firm with him." She chastised her friend and Lisa just laughed.

"See? You're maternal already."

"Oh, shut up." Carmen told her. She was quiet a beat further. "Ram spoke today."

Lisa whirled. "Really? That's great! What did he say?"

"Eat."

"Yes, we will eventually but what did the small and silent one say?"

Carmen rolled her eyes. "He told me to 'eat'." Carmen explained slowly and Lisa raised her eyebrows in understanding.

"Oh. Is that all?"

"We had a very monosyllabic conversation but at least one question's answered. He _can_ speak, he just doesn't usually."

"Well, that's good. You looked into schools for him yet?"

"Yes, I was thinking of sending him with the twins, better with someone he knows. They go to the Weston Academy, don't they?"

"Uh-huh, I'll put in a word with the board if you like." Lisa offered as she stuffed the bowl of salad in the fridge and snatched the smoked salmon from Carmen before she could eat it. "None of that for you. Did you take him to Dr Schultz?"

Carmen frowned and picked up cheese instead. "Yes, he doesn't read very well and he can't write at all. He's intelligent, I never doubted that for a second, but he is very much behind all of his peers."

Lisa was quiet for a moment and turned to look at Carmen, cleaning her hands on a towel. "It'll be hard for him, especially at the Academy, they push kids hard there."

"He'll be fine." Carmen said completely believing it. If Ram was anything, it was a fighter. He would do well, she knew it.

"Evening ladies." Greg said brightly as he limped into the room. He wore hiking boots and dark jeans with a plain white tank top under a hideously clashing Hawaiian shirt. He handed Ram's sweater to Carmen. "That's yours." He said and bent his head to steal a kiss from his fiancé. "That's mine." He grinned at her and Carmen rolled her eyes.

"Should I go outside?"

Lisa shoved Greg away a little and a flush stole over her cheeks. She cleared her throat and attempted to rein in her affection to company friendly proportions. "Is dinner ready yet?"

"The meat is sizzling as we speak. How do you like your steak, sister sweet?"

"Take off the hooves and the horns, show it the grill and I'll eat it." Carmen said brightly.

"She'll have it well done." Lisa interjected.

"The hell she will." Carmen said back and folded her arms in a mulish manner. Greg looked between them.

"Ah. Congratulations, Carmen, on your impending bundle of…" Lisa elbowed him in the ribs. "Joy." He finished brightly, if a little breathlessly and scowled at his lover. "I need them, you know."

"Your meat should be cooked thoroughly."

"And, I'm sure it will…on the outside." Carmen enunciated slowly and clearly. She was having her steak rare if she had to go and find a fresh cow to work with and cook it herself.

"There's no harm in it." Greg tried to appease the two women in his life a little. At the two glares that were levelled at him he desperately bargained. "Compromise; have it medium rare." He offered Carmen.

She sighed. "Alright, _fine_. Ruin my dinner then." She glared at Lisa. "You going to be like this for the next seven months?"

Lisa nodded. "Who, out of the three of us, has been through this before?"

Greg decided that retreat was definitely on the cards and tried to sidle away as discreetly as possible.

"Women get pregnant and have children everyday, do you _have _to be an over controlling fuss about this?" Carmen demanded.

"Yes." Lisa said emphatically.

"You should see her in the bedroom." Greg put in and yelped as an oven mitt slapped him on the side of his head.

"Didn't you have something to do?" Lisa asked him pointedly and he grinned at her.

"Of course, dear." Sarcasm dripped from his words with a cheerful teasing that had Lisa fighting a grin. He turned away from her and limped back out into the garden. Lisa watched him go with a tilt of her head and a small smile. She returned to her indignant glower when she realised Carmen was grinning at her.

"If he wasn't the twin's father I'd have tossed him out weeks ago." Lisa brushed it off with a careless shrug of her shoulders and pulled out a massive loaf of tiger-bread up onto the chopping board and began to slice into thick wedges.

"Uh-huh, the fact that you're head over heels for him is no never-mind?" Carmen asked with a wicked grin.

Lisa rolled tomatoes towards her friend and pushed a knife over as well. "Make yourself useful if you're going to stand there." She wasn't fooling anyone.

"You're just as bad." Lisa pointed out to her friend.

There was a pointed silence that Carmen did _not_ fill with empty denials. Lisa looked up to see the tall blonde smile softly to herself as she sliced the tomatoes with swift easy movements. Lisa smiled her own smile and turned back to her lettuce. She guessed they could both not deny it together then.

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"You going to tell me what that was about at dinner?" Benicio asked Carmen quietly as he lifted Ram gently out of his truck. The flame haired boy was sound asleep and had been since they had begun the forty minute drive back from Greg and Lisa's place. Ben's town house stood tall and dimly silent on the street and Carmen jogged up the stone steps to turn her key quietly in the lock. The door swung inward as she frowned over her shoulder at him.

"What?"

"Lisa was acting weird, more to the point, she was acting weird around you. What have you done?" He whispered back to her as he passed her in the hallway and started for the stairs.

"Why is it always me? You know, some things are beyond even my control." She pointed out and he missed the way her hand went to her belly for a brief moment. She shook herself from it almost immediately and by the time he did turn to glare at her she looked as relaxed and as _Carmen _as ever. She grinned wickedly at him and he rolled his eyes. "Coffee?"

"Sure. Let me put the runt to bed." Ben grunted and then turned to pad relatively quietly up the stairs to put their adoptive son to bed.

Carmen stilled, halfway to the kitchen and one expensively booted foot frozen midstep, on the heels of that thought. She hadn't thought her son, she'd thought_ their_ son. Carmen scrubbed a hand over her face and ignored the possible repercussions for her make up. Oy, she was a parent already. She swallowed and shook it off, she supposed she had better tell the father. Her eyes skipped to the ceiling where she could hear the big lummox lumbering around. The man was an ox…and hung like one too. Carmen grinned at that thought as she filled the kettle and flipped it on with a casual flick of her wrist.

She tilted her head to look out the window at the back of the house and up to the moon that shone fat and yellow in the sky. The stars sprinkled the dark hazy sky, but only the boldest and the brightest managed to force their way through the smog of the city in order to break through to ground level. Carmen's fingers fidgeted together as she tried to think on how to tell Benicio that they were going to be parents. He would be shocked, she knew, they had been careful…kind of.

The only real mishaps had been in the shower that one time and by the fire on that unnaturally cold summer's night a month or so ago. Carmen's fingers seemed intent on throttling each other as she shut her eyes and winced as her cheeks flushed a little, and, of course, there had been that time in the bathroom at that boring fundraiser that they had been strong-armed into attending with Lisa and Greg.

So they hadn't been that careful.

She hadn't been that worried…point of fact, neither had Ben. She frowned at that, she was pretty sure that Ben wasn't the type to use deception in order to get his way. He wanted kids. That was fairly obvious with the way he acted around the twins and with Ram. He loved kids. He was a natural father figure around them as well. He didn't patronise them, he didn't ignore them and he played with them if they asked him to and always enthusiastically. Carmen released her hand to run it through her hair. She luxuriated in the soothing action and let her thoughts chase each other a moment more. He wouldn't lie to her in order to get what he wanted, not with something as large as having a child, but she wondered if, perhaps, he hadn't wanted it subconsciously. Every time they had realised they had taken a risk he had shrugged, said it was safe.

Safe for what?

_Guaranteeing_ pregnancy?

Carmen jumped as two strong arms wrapped around her from behind and his chin came down on her shoulder. She smiled and folded her hands down over his, turning her head so that her cheek rested against his. Any thoughts of what he may or may not have been doing about her state of pregnancy fled her head as she simply revelled in his presence. His skin was always warmer than hers, he gave of a heat that was as sensual as it was comforting. He smelled of cool cologne, the sweat of hard physical labour and the deeper scent of wood smoke, pine and the outdoors. His skin was velvet against hers and much darker than her casual tan. He could have been carved from the finest wood, a statue of male prowess…and he was just so _big._ Entirely male. Outstripping her by a full head, twice her width in his massive muscle paved shoulders and capable of tossing her across the room with a casual flick of one hand, but he was so gentle too. He could stroke his work hardened fingers over her skin in whisper soft caresses, pick her up off the floor as if she were as light as a week old kitten.

It was when he was like this. With his arms around her, surrounding her in a wall of his own strength that she felt at her most feminine. She was a capable lawyer with a wicked tongue that could cut any man to shreds, though she abhorred violence she was a black belt in kung fu. She believed a woman should be able to her defend herself if the occasion called for it and she was laced with various scars when she'd had to impress her beliefs on those who had needed reminding, but…with Benicio standing over and around her like this. It was easy to feel beautiful and cherished.

To feel loved.

His warm lips found her throat and trailed along the column of her neck to nibble at her ear. "You wanna fool around?" He husked in her ear and she bit her lip against the grin that stretched her mouth even as she shivered in his hold. She turned in his arms and he loosened his hold in order for her to do so. She rested her hands against his chest and thought that she really needed to tell him quite soon.

"Yes…but I need to talk to you about something." She said and tried to ignore the trace of nervousness in her tone.

He picked it up anyway.

"Is this about the way Lisa was at dinner?" His brows snapped down in a frown. "Is she okay?"

Carmen nodded hurriedly. "She's fine, she just wanted me to…tell you something." The kettle clicked off and Carmen frowned as she realised that only a few minutes had passed. "Sit down and I'll get us some coffee." She told him and gestured at the small round pine table in the small terracotta tiled kitchen. She forced herself to smile as nerves twisted violently in her stomach. She hadn't realised how difficult this would be for her to talk about with him. He sat, watching her carefully all the while and she turned away quickly in order to set about getting their drinks.

Her hands shook slightly and she inhaled a deep steadying breath in order to get herself under control.

"Babe? You okay?" His voice rumbled through the kitchen and Carmen nodded vigorously without turning to him. He liked his coffee strong and she made it with automatic movements. Ingrained habit after the last few months of living together.

"I'm fine." She said and handed him his steaming cup of thick-enough-to-stand-a-horseshoe-in coffee while keeping her mug of tea gripped in white fingers. She sipped the hot brew cautiously and tried to think about how to break the news to him. She looked up and blurted the first thing that came into her head. "Ram spoke today."

Benicio rocked back in his chair as he gulped his coffee and grinned at her. "That's great…but that's not what you have to tell me." It wasn't a question. He knew her well enough by now to read the subtle nuances under her mask of English civility. Stiff upper lip and give nothing away type of thing, but the mask was made of glass and he could see what she was really feeling under it sometimes. Right now, she was feeling worried.

"No, it's not." She admitted and blew out a long breath while running her fingers through her long hair. He loved to do exactly the same thing they were usually in bed when he was doing it but she only did it when she was worried or stressed about something.

"Carmen, whatever it is, you can tell me." He told her.

Carmen shut her eyes and then braced herself. She looked up at him with those big bright eyes of hers and smirked.

"You're going to be a father." She sipped her tea and then pointed to his end of the table. "Pass the sugar please."

Benicio nodded and pushed the bowl towards her and then raised his own mug to his lips. He stilled as her first sentence registered with his brain. He was completely frozen and made a small choking sound in the back of his throat before his bright green eyes darted to hers. "What?" His voice was a hoarse croak between them.

"I'm…pregnant."

Benicio stretched his neck as if in pain and set his cup down on the table, the hot dark liquid slopping onto the table top as he did so. "How far along?" He asked her as he rose to his feet and prowled restlessly around the room. Carmen frowned at his actions, he looked like a caged lion that had just been prodded with a very sharp stick.

"Nearly two months." She offered.

"I thought it was stomach flu." He muttered and turned his back to her, one hand raising to grip in his hair, the other landing fisted on his hip. He could hear the scrape of her chair as she rose to her feet and clicked across the kitchen to stand behind him. Her hand was light on his shoulder.

"Benicio…?" Her voice stopped abruptly as he flinched away from her. She swallowed hard. The small rejection stung but she hardened herself to it. She refused to run, he had put up with a lot from her and he'd stayed with her. He was having trouble adjusting to the news, she hadn't exactly been Miss Erudite herself when the doctor had informed her yesterday either. "Are you all right?" She asked him, reaching for him again and then snatching her hand back in surprise when he whirled with a sudden and ferocious movement. She blinked rapidly in surprise when he glared down at her.

Tears shone in his eyes and he looked like she'd just ripped his heart out and trampled on it in her designer heels. "Am I all right?" He mimicked back to her in a vicious low growl. He looked down at her like he had just realised that she was unclean. "You treacherous whore." He spat at her and whirled, stomping from the kitchen in long angry strides. The door slammed shut behind him as he left the house.

Carmen could only stare after him, her lips parted in shock and hurt. It took a few moments for his words to register and, by that point, she was already striding after him through the house. She threw open the front door and looked out onto the street. She could only watch as his truck snarled to life and pulled away from her with a squeal of tires. Carmen stared after it, her hand half raised as if she could call the vehicle back with her will alone. She let her hand drop to her side in cold hard realisation. She shut the door and leant against it, sliding down to the floor as her knees quietly buckled under her.

She didn't realise she was crying until Ram knelt down in front of her holding out a white tissue to her. He offered her another one and then crawled onto her lap, tucking his head under her chin. He didn't appear to mind as her hot wet tears fell onto his cheek as if they were his own.

She had no idea what had just happened. She had no idea what she was supposed to have done wrong. She had no idea what she was supposed to do about it either.

But she still couldn't stop crying.


	3. Chapter 3

Uuummm…jam.

S&M party was…interesting. In a 'I don't want to lean against anything in case I get strapped down to it and whipped…and is that _real_ leather?' kind of way.

Anyways, angst ensues.

But not for Ram, he's fine.

Read and review me chickadees!!!

**Not Fine**

"You okay?"

Carmen blinked rapidly and then looked down at Ram as he held her hand, his golden skinned face turned up towards her with his big silver eyes shining like dollars fresh from the mint. She forced a smile that felt the wrong size for her face and laughed a strange almost human sounding sound.

"Of course I am, darling. It should be me asking you that." She looked up towards the massive sprawl of the school building in front of them and ignored the fact that she had just lied to Ram for the first time. They were walking along the gravelled driveway. It crunched noisily under their feet. Ram took three steps to every one of her long strides but she had slowed her pace considerably for him. The interview wasn't until nine thirty and the bell for the start of classes had just rung. They had plenty of time. Weston Academy was an Ivy League school if Carmen had ever seen one. She still wasn't sure if this was the right way to go, she had gone to comprehensive schools her entire life, from bad areas of England to downright derelict. She had done fine. Of course, there had always been that social stumbling block when one of her moneyed clients had found out that she hadn't gone to school with Madonna's little sister or something absurd like that. She dropped her gaze to Ram. He swung her hand brightly in his and kicked at the gravel under his leather shod feet.

He looked absolutely darling in his little beige pants, leather loafers and green shirt. He liked green, said it made him feel like Superman. Carmen couldn't even begin to fathom the logic behind that one but she didn't have the heart to deny him the pleasure of wearing his favourite shirt and, of course, the lucky rocket-ship underpants. This was after receiving the promise that he wouldn't show off said lucky underwear to anyone. Not even if they asked him to. Carmen had also decided to err on the side of prim this morning. She wore a dove grey tailored pant suit and a black shirt under that. A rope of pearls circled her throat and her hair was pulled back into a tight knot at her nape.

"What do you think of the place then?" She asked him and he shrugged his slim shoulders.

"S'alright."

"Well, there's a screaming endorsement." Carmen said wryly and he giggled. She grinned at the sound. She was immensely glad that he sounded happy. He had been so frightened when they had first met. There were still the occasional nightmare and he was still wary of new people, especially men, but he seemed ready for this.

"Zat sarcasm?" He asked her and she nodded.

"Yes, well done, most Americans can't pick up on it." Carmen smirked down at him as he gave another giggle. Carmen pushed open the massive mahogany door that formed the main entrance to the school and stepped inside the cool interior of the school. Slick hallway flooring clicked underfoot, bright walls were lit up with artworks that the pupils had done. Stories they had illustrated. Things they had done, that sort of stuff. Carmen had to admit she was surprised. She had expected something a lot more…austere.

"Miss House?"

Carmen turned in time to see and attractive man in his forties walking towards Ram and herself. He extended his hand and she took it, again, surprised at his firm handshake. He smiled openly and honestly at her and then look down at Ram. Carmen felt a brief tug in her chest as she remembered Benicio's similar smile and quashed it ruthlessly. Today was for Ram and she needed to be on the ball for him.

"You must be Ram. I'm Mr Hengest, I'm the dean of the academy. Very pleased to meet you." Hengest extended his hand and Ram hesitated only briefly before putting his own much smaller one in it and shaking briefly. Carmen felt a bloom of pride in herself and sighed mentally at the rollercoaster ride her hormones were taking her on. Lisa had told her the first few months were the hardest to adjust to in a pregnancy and Carmen was getting the sneaking suspicion that her friend hadn't been exaggerating.

"My aunt's the dean of medicine in the hospital." Ram volunteered and Carmen tried very hard not to gape as her head whipped around and down to look at him. He looked up at her with an innocent expression and then winked at her. She arched a brow at him and his grin widened.

"Ah, yes, that would be Antonio and Nikolai's mother, yes?" Hengest queried and Carmen nodded.

"Soon to be my sister-in-law." Carmen affirmed with a smile.

Hengest's brows rose in evident surprise at that and he tilted his head. Obviously too well bred to say that he thought she had been an intently career orientated woman that had no time for men. "I must congratulate her the next time I see her." He murmured instead and spread his arm to indicate the hallway. "We are a few minutes early, but would you like to begin the tour of the Academy?" Carmen smirked her approval when Hengest spoke not only to her, but to Ram as well. Ram shrugged his agreement and Carmen nodded.

"We might as well." Carmen murmured.

"Good, good." Hengest said and lead them down the hallway, pointing out various features, architecture, classes, glossing over various course choices that the academy had made for its pupils and generally being the font of all knowledge when it came to Weston Academy. Carmen had to admit she was impressed. Trust Lisa to put her kids in the best school on the East Coast, and it wasn't an empty boast either. Weston seemed to be the place to go if you wanted a first class education. At the conclusion to their tour, they ended up outside a small maths class with all the children sitting at full attention watching the teacher as she taught them the basics of division.

"How would you like to join the class, Ram?" Hengest put to the boy. It had been an agreed part of the interview process that Ram should sit in on at least one class so the staff could see how he interacted with the other students. Carmen had mentioned this to Ram and he had gotten that wary look in his eyes but hidden it quickly. This was the part that Carmen was most nervous about. She had no idea how well Ram might act within a social situation with his peers that weren't the twins. She ducked her head and looked down at him with a questioning eyebrow raised.

"You don't have to if you don't want to." She said gently and noted how Hengest shifted in the corner of her vision. He obviously didn't think this was the proper way for a parent to encourage their child to succeed in academic achievement but Carmen couldn't care less. She wanted ram to be happy, she didn't give a damn what anyone else thought.

"That's okay. I'll sit in." Ram told her and she smiled at that. Pleased he'd made the decision himself. Hengest smiled warmly and opened the classroom door, ushering Ram in with a hand on his shoulders, Carmen noted that Ram didn't quite flinch away from the contact, but or did he put up with it more than he had to. Hengest let it slide. He nodded to the teacher and she smiled, keeping the flow of her lesson and letting Ram slip unobtrusively in at the back. Hengest and Carmen stood in the back of the class and tried not to look too much like unwelcome interlopers. Hengest leant closer to her and Carmen could smell that his aftershave was the same as Benicio's. Something raw and painful twisted in her gut and she suppressed a wince.

Not now.

"You said that Ram is behind in his linguistic skills, do you have any idea how well he would do with numbers?"

Carmen rolled her shoulder in a shrug. "Maths was never my strong suit. He recognises numbers more easily, according to Dr Schultz, but I focused on the alphabet since that was where he had most trouble."

Hengest nodded and Carmen couldn't tell if he approved of her thinking or if he was just encouraging her to continue.

"He will have to work very hard to catch up with his fellow students. I don't think it would be good for him to be put into a lower age group. You say you want him here to socialise more than anything else?" Hengest looked at her and Carmen realised with a start that his eyes were quite an endearing shade of grey. Almost silver. Like Ram's, in fact.

"Yes." Carmen shook off that thought. "And he's not afraid of hard work. He'll catch up." Carmen told him perhaps a little more fiercely than she had intended because he rocked back on his heels slightly and arched a brow at her.

"Sorry." Carmen apologised with a strained smile. "Hormones." She uttered without thinking and immediately regretted it. The last thing she needed was some stiff shirt putting points against Ram because she'd been stupid enough to get knocked up and then abandoned by her lover. A fresh wave of agony writhed around her heart and Carmen had a harder time pushing this one aside.

"You're pregnant?" Hengest asked quietly, but with an interest in his tone as his eyes swept down over her still flat stomach. Carmen resisted the urge to squirm under his scrutiny and nodded. How had they gotten onto this subject again? Hengest smiled and Carmen's mouth nearly dropped open at the transformation in his features. Before this genuine smile, his features had been well formed in an average kind of way, almost harsh at times, but with his smile everything just lit up and he looked suddenly boyish.

He looked like Benicio.

Carmen's jaw tightened and she forced herself to listen to the man speak. "My sister's just found out she's expecting. She and her husband are ecstatic." Hengest supplied. "The father must be overjoyed." He said, completely sure that this was the case.

"Not the word I would have chosen to describe his reaction."

"Oh." There was a single damning note in his voice. A truckload of disapproval crammed into that single syllable. "Then he didn't deserve you."

Carmen's eyes flew to his and this time her mouth did drop open. "You don't even know him." She almost spoke in her regular tone and pulled back to a background whisper just in time.

Hengest shrugged. "He'd be an idiot to push you away for something that was partially his doing as well. It's not fair on you or the child." There was a tightening in his jaw that told Carmen that this wasn't some soapbox opinion. Someone had burned this man in the past.

Carmen shrugged and turned her attention back to the class in front of them. "No argument from me." The words trailed away as the teacher singled out Ram by name. She had known he would end up in her class obviously.

"Ram, why don't you come up to the board and try this one?" Miss…Sinclair, Carmen remembered abruptly, was a woman perhaps ten years younger than Carmen herself. She would have barely reached her shoulder, standing at a smudge over five feet, but she had a kind heart-shaped face, laughing hazel eyes and masses of curling brown hair. Ram rose to his feet without a word and trailed to the front of the room. Stepping neatly over the folded legs of his fellow students that sat on the floor in front of him. He took the chalk from the teacher and looked up at the board.

Carmen held her breath, waiting to see how he would react. He was a clever boy, but he had only had ten minutes to absorb what his classmates had been learning for weeks. The sum was a simple one; thirty two divided by four, but even so…

Ram lifted his hand and scrawled an eight on the other side of the equals sign. Carmen grinned. Clever lad. Hengest stood a little straighter next to her and arched a brow. He nodded subtly to Miss Sinclair and the teacher promptly turned to Ram and bent at the waist so she was eye level with the boy.

"Would you like to try another one?"

Ram cast a single glance back at Carmen, as if simply assuring himself that she was there and then turned back to the teacher. He shrugged his apathy to whether or not he was given another sum to do. Miss Sinclair took that as a yes and lifted another piece of chalk, scribbling another quick sum on the board.

Seventy two divided by twelve.

Carmen held her breath as Ram tilted his head at the numbers. He reached up and wrote a six. Sinclair wrote another sum without asking and Ram wrote another correct answer. Sinclair let a frown mar her brow and wrote another series of sums. Ram did them all and didn't get one wrong.

"Has he ever displayed any great interest in numbers?" Hengest's voice was close to Carmen's ear and she turned to see him leaning quite close to her. She considered moving away and then decided against it. She shook her head.

"He read some of my nephew's school books but that was about it."

Hengest nodded his head once and then turned and bowed his head to Miss Sinclair. She acknowledged him and then turned back to the board.

Twenty thousand eight hundred and sixty five divided by sixty five.

"How can she expect him to know that?" Carmen demanded of Hengest and he shushed her with a hand on her arm. Removing it quickly when she dropped her gaze to it.

"We've done this kind of thing before, Miss House. Give us a chance with your son."

Carmen frowned at him but turned back to watch Ram. She didn't see the point in giving him sums until he did one wrong in front of his classmates, especially on his first day. She watched as Ram tilted his head at the board, his finger slipping back and forth over the head of the chalk as he thought about it. Then he reached up and wrote three hundred and twenty one. Sinclair blinked and then reached for a calculator, punching in the numbers and raising her eyebrows at the result. She looked back at Ram and held out her hand for the chalk.

"All correct! Well done, Ram. You can go and sit down now."

Ram nodded, completely unaware that he had just rocked the socks off the three adults in the room. Miss Sinclair took a moment to watch the boy return to his position on the floor and then returned to her lesson.

"Bloody hell." Carmen muttered and looked around when Hengest glanced at her language. "What? You have to admit that was impressive."

Hengest nodded. "That it was. I would like to do further tests with Ram. To see what other areas he might excel in." Hengest suggested.

Carmen rocked back on her heels. Her lawyer persona coming to the fore. "Was that an invitation for enrolment?" She asked slyly and he chuckled and nodded.

"I think we can work something out."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Lisa lifted her hand and rapped sharply on the door with her gloved knuckles. Her breath clouded in the frigid afternoon air. It was strange to think that only a week ago it had been sunny enough and warm enough to sit outside and cook over a barbecue. Greg had been grumbling about the frosty state of the roads, saying he wouldn't be able to ride his bike into work soon. Lisa frowned as she folded her arms over her chest and tired to hug the warmth closer to her body. The red door to her brother's house remained closed tight against her and she scowled. She knew he was home, that was his truck half parked on the sidewalk. Parked being an optimistic term, abandoned being more accurate. She lifted her hand and knocked again. Stamping her feet to keep warm. She had been cosy in her heated car, but the cold air was fast leeching any heat from her body with cool fingers winding in through the thick material of her winter coat.

Lisa frowned as another few minutes passed. She leaned closer to the door, calling through the wood.

"Ben? You okay?"

Silence.

Lisa pressed her palms against the door and leaned in closer still, straining to hear for any signs of life.

"You the other woman?"

Lisa jumped and whirled, frowning at the tall woman that stood on the front steps of the house next door. She wore only shorts and a zip up hooded top. Sweat glistened on her body and face and her chest heaved as she eyed Lisa up and down.

"What other woman?" Lisa asked, not sure if she liked where this was going. The stranger looked like she wasn't sure whether to help Lisa or send her packing.

The neighbour leant against the stone frame of her door with one shoulder and lifted a bottle of water to her lips, draining half of it in deep thirsty gulps. She ripped the bottle away with a gasp of satisfaction and smudged her wrist across her lips as she continued to scrutinise Lisa. "Well, something happened to send the English broad packing." The neighbour shrugged her shoulders. "I figured another woman for Ben was as good a guess as any."

"Carmen's gone?" Lisa frowned. She had spoken to Carmen just last night, she had said everything was fine. At the neighbour's frown Lisa hurried to describe her friend. "Tall woman, about your height, long strawberry blonde hair and bright, bright, blue eyes."

Neighbour nodded. "That's the one. She was nice, better than that redhead freak that was sniffing about a couple of months ago."

"When did Carmen go?"

Neighbour shrugged. "About this time last week. I think they had a fight. Ben peeled outta here late one night and stayed away until the next day I think. Well, that is I didn't see his truck until the next day. Anyways, between him leaving and coming back, classy chick got in that green jag with the cute little kid and left. Haven't seen her since." Lisa stood there, stunned for a moment. Things were anything but _fine._ Neighbour narrowed her eyes at Lisa. "Who did you say you were?"

"I'm Lisa." Cuddy strode to the wall separating the steps and extended her hand. Neighbour extended her own when Lisa elaborated. "I'm Ben's sister."

"Felicity." She nodded to the door over Cuddy's shoulder. "I have a spare key in case of emergencies. You want it?"

Lisa looked at the door and bit her lip. She nodded after a moment, she was worried about him. Though she had spoken to Carmen over the phone, she hadn't heard from Ben. She hadn't been concerned because when Carmen had said things were fine, Lisa had assumed that she had been speaking for herself and Ben as well. She turned to Felicity. "When was the last time you actually saw Ben?"

"In person?" Felicity asked as she rummaged in the drawer in the table by her front door. "That would be…" Felicity yanked a key that matched Ben's lock out of the drawer with a smirk of triumph and handed it to Lisa over the wall that separated them. "About this time last week as well."

Something cold and uncomfortable filled Lisa's chest and she whirled to the door jamming the key in the lock. "Could you have missed him at any point?" Lisa asked as the lock clicked and she pushed her shoulder against the heavy door to open it.

"Not unless he came and went when I was out for my run. I work from home and my office overlooks the street." Felicity said, a shrug in her voice.

Lisa shoved the door open and looked down as several days worth of mail shuffled under the hem of the door and sprawled across the hardwood floors. Dread coalesced low in her stomach. She tried to tell herself that her big brother was safe and well and that nothing awful had happened to him, but they had always been close, and now that she thought about it. A week was the longest they had ever gone without at least a phone call between them. Her heels thumped against the floor as she skipped over the mail and strode into the house. She stopped as stuffy stale air assaulted her. She put a hand to her nose as she wrinkled it.

God, what had happened in here?

Lisa's eyes widened as she took in the trashed state of Ben's usually obsessively neat house. Chairs were overturned, books and CDs were scattered across the floor, trash lay here and there along with several empty bottles of hard liquor. Someone had gone over the place, systematically destroying it piece of hand-carved furniture by piece. There was thump from the kitchen and Lisa looked up and her mouth fell open on a gasp.

"Ben!" She rushed towards him as he staggered out of the kitchen, a bottle of vodka dangling from his numb fingers. His hair was a mess, he hadn't shaved in days, dark circles smudged his bloodshot eyes, his hair was rough and unkempt, his shirt hung open and off his body with crusty stains of things Lisa didn't really want to think about splashed over the fabric. His feet were bare and Lisa could see that there were several cuts on them where he had obviously trodden over something sharp and not bothered to tend the wounds.

"Oh, it's you." He grunted and staggered against a chair. He looked down at it with a frown. "Prick." He told it and kicked it with one bare foot. "Ow." He pouted and took another mouthful of alcohol straight from the bottle. He appeared not to care that he mostly missed his mouth and the liquid trailed down over his chest. His blood shot eyes swung back to his stunned sister who still stood in the middle of the floor in the living room, looking like a pristine ghost in the middle of the carnage.

"What do you want?" He demanded with a slur and a lurch as he tried to walk towards her but obviously couldn't quite get his long legs to work properly. He slipped on what looked to be a smudge of his own blood and crashed to the floor. Lisa lunged but she was too far away to do anything more than wince in sympathy when he slumped to the floor with a clatter.

"Ben, what happened?" She asked as she knelt beside him.

Ben shrugged. "Fell down."

"No, I mean with the house, with the mess, with Carmen." Her brother stiffened at the mention of her friend's name and Lisa could only watched in appalled amazement as her brother frowned and then sniffed suddenly, tears standing out in his eyes.

Lisa went completely still. She had never, _ever_ seen Ben cry. It simply did not happen. He had been the stereotypical male, all their life. Big boys don't cry, that sort of thing. Worry twisted itself into a tighter knot in her gut and Lisa swallowed hard, she had to find out what had happened.

"Carmen." He breathed the name as if it were like spitting shards of glass. As if it pierced his heart to even think the word never mind utter it. "She's gone." He was silent a moment. "Good riddance. Whore." He spat drunkenly and it was only the several litres of drink that he must have consumed that saved him from a ringing slap across the face for talking like that about Carmen in front of Lisa.

"What do you mean?" Lisa asked as she tried to pull the bottle of vodka from her brother's grasp. His fingers tightened over it with a scowl and he snatched it away, lifting it to his lips and draining it in a few gulps. The same way Felicity had swallowed down the water after her run.

"I thought she loved me!" Ben bellowed suddenly and Lisa rocked back on her knees as he lunged forward, his face inches from hers. His green eyes bored into her own aquamarine gaze and then he dropped his chin and sniffed again, he scrubbed a grubby sleeve over his eyes to scrub away the tears before they fell. "I loved her…she never said it back…now I know why." Ben sounded broken. Like someone had ripped out his heart and thrown it into the fire. "She lied to me."

"Ben, Carmen does love you." Lisa told him and he laughed then, a twisted almost human sound and then he scrambled against the floor and lurched to his feet. Lisa sprang up as quickly as she could and tried to steady him as he wove slightly he turned to her and pointed to her, or tried to. He missed the first couple of times and had to squint and concentrate extra hard before finally managing to get his finger pointing at her.

"Liar. Just like her." He said. "But that's okay, coz you're my sister." Ben staggered slightly and waved off Lisa when she tried to steady him. "Lemme alone! Sisters are supposed to lie to their brothers…I thought you were still a virgin right up until you got knocked up." He told her as if faintly surprised at the notion.

Charming.

Lisa blinked at that. "Really?"

"Yeah, I know, stupid, huh?" He looked suddenly so heartbreakingly sad again and then let his hands hang limply by his sides, still swaying slightly. "But you believe what you want to believe…I guess." A single tear fell down his dark tanned face and Lisa's heart wrenched for him. He looked like he was in agony. "Happens with women too. I always believe the best about them even…even if they're lying cheaters." He spat, suddenly venomous again.

Lisa planted her hands on her hips and glared at her brother. Drunk or not, there was no reason to let him continue believing this crap about Carmen. She didn't know what had happened and, judging by the state of certain brothers, she wasn't going to be finding out until he sobered up.

"Ben!" She snapped at him in her best administrator's voice and he lurched around to look at her again. Any of his natural grace having gone the way of the alcoholic dodo. He staggered once and managed to right himself. "I don't know what happened between you two, but I do know that Carmen's never cheated on anyone. She's been faithful to every single man she's ever had a relationship with."

Ben snorted. "I was her first relationship." He giggled then as if he would either laugh or cry and chose hysterical giggles instead of sobs of grief. "She told me that…told me the baby was mine too." He crashed down suddenly and managed to fall onto some scattered cushions that had once been on the couch.

"Ben, I thought you wanted kids." Lisa asked him as she went to kneel by his side again.

"I did…do." He flopped onto his side, his head landing on her lap. He sniffed again and another tear slid down over his cheek and nose, dripping onto the skirt of her long coat that she still wore. The house was freezing. It didn't feel like he'd had the heating on in the past week or so. Her gaze travelled along his body to catch on the bloody mess of his feet, there were bruises over his chest as well, like he'd fallen on something. Some of them looked serious enough and he winced when she pressed her fingers there. She'd put money on him having broken some ribs. His hands were cut as well, like he'd tried to pick up broken glass and been too clumsy not to slice his fingers to ribbons.

Her brother had sunk into a depression and tried to drink himself to death. Lisa shut her eyes briefly, tears burning in the back of her eyes and then blinked them away. He needed her right now.

More importantly he needed antiseptic, a shower and a tetanus. She couldn't do this herself. At first, she thought about calling her mother or Randy, but she didn't want them to see Ben like this. Lying half conscious in a mess of dried blood and alcohol, muttering to himself and only half lucid. Lisa pulled out her cell phone and dialled the number without even thinking about it.

It rang a couple of times and then clicked as he picked up.

"Hey, my little sex kitten, where are you?" He purred down the phone and she laughed despite herself.

"Greg." She recognised the relived sound of her voice. Just the sound of his deep baritone had comforted her beyond anything she had thought possible.

"What is it? What's wrong?" His voice was concerned. He had picked up on her distress immediately. "Has something happened?" He demanded. He knew it wouldn't be the boys because they were with him.

"No, it's Ben. Something's happened between Carmen and him, his place is trashed, he's drunk and he needs medical attention."

"Is he conscious?" Greg swept aside all else and focused on the most pressing problems medically, first. He could be a fiancé in a minute, now that he was sure she was okay.

"Slipping in and out now. He's cut up and I think he's maybe fractured a couple of ribs." Lisa catalogued the injuries. "He doesn't need the hospital but can you come over? And bring your kit?"

"Of course, I'll be about twenty minutes, we're at your mom's."

"I know." She said softly as she brushed some of Ben's matted hair away from his face. He flinched away from the contact and muttered something feverish as his eyes rolled back and his head lolled. "Don't bring the boys, I don't want anyone else to see him like this." She said quietly.

She could almost hear him turning away from other people in the room. "That bad?"

Lisa looked up at the destroyed living room. Ben had made every single stick of furniture in this room. He had worked with blood sweat and tears to pay for everything in this house and put it altogether with the idea of creating a home for himself that he could share with someone special. His dream. Now he thought that was destroyed…so he'd destroyed his home too.

"Worse." She breathed.

"I'll get there as soon as I can." Greg tried to soothe her down the line. "Just sit tight." He hated this helpless feeling of not being able to help her right away.

"Okay." Her voice sounded too small on the other end of the phone.

He said the only thing that he knew would make her feel better. "I love you."

He could hear her still on the other end. Then heard her shaky smile as she spoke. "I love you too. See you in twenty."

"Bye."

"Bye." She answered and flipped her phone shut. He listened to her hang up and then stuffed his cell into his pocket. He rounded on the room and his eyes sought out a single person and he limped over to them. He bent, leaning heavily on his lion-head cane as he spoke quietly in her ear.

"Things most definitely are not '_fine_' between you and Ben." He gritted and Carmen stiffened on the chair on which she sat. She whipped her head around and stared at him, bright eyes wild and her mouth opening to explain. "Later." He told her and headed for the door, saying goodbye to his kids on the way there. He was going to get mamma, and they would both be back soon. Yeah, maybe they'd see uncle Ben later too. Behave until he got back.

He limped out to his car and swung himself inside. His first aid kit was in the trunk and he hoped that one would be enough. Swinging by the house would be nearly an hour in the wrong direction and he wanted to get to Lisa and Ben now. He scowled at the grey sky as the engine roared beneath the hood and he pulled along the road, heading for the highway and back into the city.

How stupid did you have to be to go and get absolutely plastered? Cutting yourself up and breaking ribs and having your…Greg's righteous indignation abruptly trailed away as he found himself on the other side of the drunken/drug induced stupor.

How many times had he put his friends through exactly the same thing that Ben was doing?

He scrubbed his hand over his face, thinking about how Lisa had sounded over the phone, sitting over her unconscious brother. She had sounded small and scared. His Lisa, vibrant sassy and not afraid of anything had sounded scared for her brother. How many times had he put her through that with one of his self destructive stunts?

Guilt roiled in him ad he shifted uncomfortably in the driver's seat. He was still surprised by these switches in perspective. Making him see the world from a more…human angle. Able to empathise with patients and their families, especially parents now. When they asked 'would you do this if it were your son?'…he usually had to lie every time.

Damn, was he _ever_ going to get used to having family?


	4. Chapter 4

Hey, hey kiddies!

Uum, by popular demand, this one mainly focuses on the huddy, hence the chapter title, which has become my new battle cry by the way (yes, I'm sorry to say, that I no longer shriek 'MEEP!' when charging off into battle).

I think I can get away with this as it really is a sequel to 'Family Secret' and while it mainly focuses on the Carmen/Benicio side of things, there will be ka-hunners of huddy in there like little choclatey nuggets in the grander cookie of the story, if you will.

Mwaha.

AND accepted unconditionally into university!!

Tee-fucking-hee, to the glorious life of a drunken student!

Uum…thassit, PSqW at…I'm gonna go with 9 ½ for this one.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Read and review me.

**Give Me Huddy or Give Me Death! **

Lisa looked up as Greg limped uneasily down the stairs and hobbled into the living room. She blew out a long breath as she straightened. His brows rose as he looked around the now miraculously tidy state of the lower floor of the house. She had tidied away everything that had been shattered, cleaned up the blood, righted what furniture hadn't been broken and generally made the place fit for human habitation.

"How is he?" She asked tentatively.

"Drunk as hell, but clean, stitched and warm in bed." Greg yawned cavernously. "Which is more than can be said for some of us." He scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked up at her as she stood, exhausted in the middle of the newly cleaned living room. "You okay?"

"Yes, I…no, not really." She wrung her hands together and bit her lip. She stared hard at the floor until his arms came around her. His hands were warm against the small of her back and she inhaled the cool familiar scent of him in comfort. She rubbed her cheek against the soft material of the shirt she had ironed for him that morning and he buried his nose in her hair. His hand soothed up and down her back. "He thinks she cheated on him. That the baby's not his. How can he believe that?"

Greg didn't know. "He got all the stupid genes?"

She slapped his chest lightly but didn't step away from him. "Ass." She told him. His hands slid lower and he smirked down at her when she looked up at him with a single arched brow.

"So it is."

"We're in my brother's house, don't be lewd."

"Aw, but honey…" He teased her and only relented when she grinned at him. "Let's go home. We could both do with some sleep."

"We can't, Ben's unconscious upstairs and someone's got to stay with him."

Greg sighed. All he wanted to do was go home and get some sleep. "He's got a spare bedroom right? We can both stay here. The kids are alright at your mom's."

"That's not necessary."

Both Lisa and Greg turned to see Carmen standing in the doorway. She looked like hell, now that they both knew what to look for. They could see the dark circles and gaunt look that her face had taken on the past week were not attributed to her morning sickness as she had told them. She had wrapped her long black winter coat tightly around herself and it seemed to be the only thing holding her together.

"Carmen, are you sure you want to…"

"Your brother made me love him, Lisa. The least I can do is make sure he doesn't choke in a pool of his own vomit." There was more than a hint of bitterness in her tone as she spoke but her face was devoid of expression. Her beautiful blue eyes blank with pain. Her gaze went distant for a moment and Lisa took half a step towards her friend but Carmen stepped away, hugging herself tighter. "Ram's with the twins at your mother's. Can you take him to school in the morning?"

"Sure." Greg told her and handed Lisa's coat to her. Pushing her into it when she didn't reach for it. "He's upstairs in bed. You going to be okay?" He asked his sister and waited until she met his eyes.

"Probably." She muttered and gestured to the door. "You two had better be going. It's late."

"You need us too." Lisa told her as she hugged her friend. Carmen returned the embrace somewhat awkwardly. She had never been the tactile kind. With women at least.

"I'll go start the car." Greg seized the excuse to allow the women some space to talk.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Lisa wanted to be sure.

"No. I'm not. Not right now, I thought…I thought at least he trusted me but…how can he think I was with someone else?" Carmen sniffed and staunchly refused to let the tears gathering in her eyes to fall. "How can he think that this baby isn't his?" Carmen's hand went to her belly and she shook her head sharply and abruptly brought herself under control. Lisa blinked at the transformation. A moment ago Carmen looked like she could barely stand, now she looked like she was ready to stride into court and hand someone their legal ass.

"Carmen, you don't have to…"

"Yes." Carmen cut Lisa off firmly but not unkindly. "I do. He's going to sleep this off and I'm going to find out why he thinks I'm nothing but a two bit whore." She was quiet a moment and Lisa's heart broke for her. Carmen always gave off the impression that she was a rose made of steel but she was brittle. One hit in the wrong place and she shattered into a thousand pieces. Lisa didn't know if this was something her friend could recover from. Carmen jerked her fiery head at the door and the engine that could be faintly heard rumbling through the quiet cold of the night. "You'd better go. God knows what he'll get up to if left on his own for too long."

"Bye, honey." Lisa hugged Carmen tightly again and then headed for the door. "Call me in the morning?"

Carmen didn't turn to see her go but nodded in profile. Lisa decided it would have to do as she shut the door with a quiet click behind her. She heard the lock turn over as she jogged down the steps and swung herself into the waiting car. Greg's hands rested competently on the wheel and he looked at her for a long moment before pulling the car out into the street and heading for home. "She okay?"

"I think…I think this could break both of them." Lisa said quietly and stared out of the window. She felt so helpless. Two of the people that she cared most about in this world were ripping each other to shreds and there was nothing she could do to abate it. She had to sit here and do nothing. With her obsessive compulsive nature being what it was…that was damn near impossible to tolerate.

"They'll get through it." He assured her and she looked over to him. It was so odd to think that only a few months ago this man had been the biggest pain in her ass. He had taunted her, annoyed her and made her life a living hell at times so he could get his own way. He had known nothing about their children and he had known nothing of how great they could be together away from the arguments and the hospital. She reached across the space between them and rested her hand over his on the gear stick. He smiled that small smile that meant he knew what she was thinking, turned his hand briefly under hers and squeezed back.

"And if they don't?" She had to know what he thought about it.

"Then we'll be there to help." He said with a verbal shrug.

She smiled brightly at him in the dim interior of the car as the engine thrummed around them in a gentle cocoon of sound.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"You think they'll be okay?" Lisa asked as she finished brushing her teeth. She could hear him moving about in the bedroom as she rinsed her mouth and clinked her toothbrush back into the little tumbler in the metal holder by the massive mirror that reflected herself back on her.

"For tonight or in the long run?"

She shrugged helplessly, worry creasing her brow. "Both."

He was silent a moment further as he thought how to answer her. "They'll be okay." He eventually decided. He seemed to debate whether or not to voice this next thought aloud and then went ahead with it anyway. "But if he hurts her again I'm gonna have to kick his ass."

Lisa grunted as she rummaged in the bathroom door. "I'll help." She muttered darkly and then slammed the drawer shut with a little more force than was strictly necessary. She caught his movement out of the corner of her eye but didn't really focus on it as she slapped the packet of cleansing wipes on the counter. "Men are such idiots!" She snapped suddenly and heard his wry chuckle from in the bedroom. She noted that he didn't deny it. "How can he think that she'd cheat on him? I mean, that's just not…her." She sighed and swept her hair back from her face.

He was quiet for long moments, presumably waiting to see if she'd finished her mild bout of temper.

"Something's different about you."

Lisa looked up from the sink and met Greg's eyes in the mirror. She could just make him out sitting on the end of the bed and watching her remove the day's make up with some kind of wipe thing that he didn't care to name.

"Different how?" She asked absently and tossed the cleansing wipe in the trash. She then unscrewed her moisturiser and smoothed it gently over the curves of her face and neck. She saw him rise to his feet and limp slowly to the doorway of the bathroom. He was mostly in shadow since only the bedside lamp was on in the bedroom. Bright white light reflected off the starkly white tiled bathroom walls. The only softness to be had in the room was from the thick white towels, the softness of her skin and silky camisole top and shorts that she was wearing to bed.

He leant against the door frame and let his eyes trail over her as he tried to discern what it was about her that was new. "I'm not sure." He admitted and limped into the room to stand directly behind her. She glanced at him in the mirror and then set about cleaning up the sink. She tossed things where they belonged and let him ponder it as she shoved the towel in the wash basket. She froze mid-action as his hands landed on the curve of her hips.

"You've put on weight."

Lisa stiffened at his voice and her eyes trailed over her reflection in a typical feminine alarm. "I have not." She told him without thinking about it and then twisted slightly to look at her body in profile.

"Not there." He told her and slid his hands suddenly upward cupping her breasts blatantly through the thin material of her sleepwear. "Here." He husked in her ear. His thumbs stroked over her nipples and her breath caught. She gripped the edge of the marble counter that the sink was fixed into and tried to hold herself upwards. She barely noticed the cold of the stone as he continued his tactile exploration of her body. Her head fell back and her throat was bared to his mouth as he kissed her softly there.

"You feel different too." He informed her and pulled her top up and off. He enjoyed the view of her flawless reflection a moment before turning her in his arms to see first hand. He trailed one index finger down over the creamy curve of her skin and then circled the hardening pebble of her nipple with a playful grin on his lips. "Firmer." He told her and lapped his tongue after the finger. She gasped and her hips bucked against his. "Heightened sensitivity." He noted and she was slightly incredulous to realise that he was diagnosing her. It should have been a massive turn off but it was the way he was doing it that had her whimpering.

"Fine then," she panted. "What's wrong with me, Dr House?" She was trying to glare at him but the effect was somewhat ruined by the way her top was currently decorating the towel rack and the way her legs had parted to allow him to sidle closer against her. They were both naked to the waist and he seemed intent on enjoying the view instead of answering her question. It took her a moment to realise he was calculating something.

"How long have we been living here?"

She blinked at the sudden question and took slightly longer than usual to answer because his hands were back on her breasts and his talented fingers were doing highly distracting things to her nipples. That did, indeed, appear to be more sensitive than usual.

"Six weeks on…um, I can't think when you do that." She confessed and he chuckled from where his lips were trailing over her collar bone and teasing the sensitive corner of her neck.

"Six weeks on Tuesday, right?"

"Um…yes." She had no idea. She lifted her hands and held onto his shoulders as he wrapped his arms around her waist and dragged her naked chest to his. Bare skin slid against bare skin and she moaned at the pleasure. The rough feel of the sparse hair arrowing over his chest against her smooth skin. The hard feel of his torso against her softer curves. The heavy timbre of his voice husking in her ear contrasting against the breathy sigh that she let loose towards the ceiling. His mouth crashed down on hers in a deep and drugging kiss that had her sighing against his lips. Her hands slid higher and tangled in his hair. She was intensely aware of how cold and uncomfortable the bathroom floor would be and of how far away their king size bed was.

"Greg?" She asked on a stolen breath between smouldering kisses.

"Hmm?"

"Bed." She demanded and shoved lightly at his chest as a physical aid to her words. He rumbled a dark chuckle through his chest and ambled backwards, pulling her with him and never quite breaking the kiss. The journey across the six feet or so of carpet between the bathroom door and the end of the bed was torture. He made sure of it.

His hands trailed over her skin, leaving behind blazing nerve endings that fired heated messages to her lust hazed mind. His lips and tongue captured hers in searing promising kisses that made her drunk with passion and pliable in his arms. Finally, finally, finally, they tumbled together onto the fur throws and expensive cotton sheets of their bed. He rolled her beneath his hard body and she gave a throaty laugh as his hips pushed against hers. The evidence of his arousal almost shocking, even through the layers of what was left of their clothing.

His lips trailed hot fire over her skin as his nimble fingers removed her tiny shorts and threw them over the edge of the mattress. Her own hands shoved insistently at the waistband of his baggy pyjama pants and soon had them down and off his long legs. They took a few moments to drive each other a little wilder.

Teasing kisses, and licks, and nips were shared along with throaty groans and husky chuckles of private delight and desire. He watched her as he leant up on his arms, she was painted in the golden light from the bedside lamp and the shadows that dripped from his larger body over hers. Their bodies slid against one another with teasing fissions of heat and sensation. He kissed her softly and then harder as her leg slid around his thigh and pulled him closer to the soft heat of her body. His pelvis flexed and he watched her eyes widen and then flutter closed as he pushed into her. Her body accepted his sweet invasion with tiny but earth shattering tremors that laced through her entire body.

"Mmm, god!" She threw her head back and her hair slid silkily over his arm at the movement. He loved that everything about her was soft, feminine, welcoming. She didn't have to, but she fit around him. Her positives to his negatives. Smoothing out his rough edges and somehow managing to make him feel better about himself. _Especially _when she did that fantastic thing with her tongue on his chest like she was doing just now.

He growled and thrust harder into her. She gasped in reply, her hips angling to his. One leg wrapped high around his hip and the other lower around his good leg as if she wanted as much skin to skin contact between them as possible. His hand spanned her thigh and anchored her as his hips powered against hers. His rhythm almost punishing to them both even as it drove them higher and higher with every bone jarring impact. Her nails prickled against his skin at his shoulders and then scored over his scalp as she tunnelled her fingers through his hair. She pulled his mouth down to hers and used the tongue tangling kiss to muffle her scream of ecstasy as she came apart at the seems for him. He groaned and shuddered with her as he followed her into bliss.

He collapsed down beside her on the mattress, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his nose filled with the scent of her hair, the smell of her moisturiser and the satisfying smell of sex. He angled his body so that she could breathe easier and she smiled even as she stopped him from moving any further away. She would never admit it, but she was entirely too possessive of him. He sidled around onto his back, their shoulders touching and their legs still entangled. They both stared at the ceiling sightlessly as their bodies heaved in exertion. The glisten of sweat cooling over their still heated skin. Small smiles curling their lips as her hand found his and his fingers laced theirs together.

Greg watched the moonlight refract through the stained glass window and create interesting patterns on the ceiling that varied wildly with each passing of a cloud over the face of the moon. It still amazed him that she wanted him. With all his rough edges and harsh ways…sometimes he lay awake at night thinking that it would all be snatched away from him and he would be left bereft and alone again but then she would sigh in her sleep and roll against him, her arm winding over his chest and her cheek resting over his heart and he would realise. She was here to stay and so was he.

"So…" Her voice croaked after the strain that she had just put her voice under with her cries of passion. She cleared her throat while he grinned at her and tried again. "So, did that help you find out what's different?"

He propped himself up on an elbow and brought their linked fingers to his mouth. Laying kisses on each of her knuckles. She smiled at his action and curled closer to his body. Her skin beginning to cool. "Nah," he finally said. "I knew what was different before." He told her and pressed a kiss to her pulse at her wrist.

"Hmm?" She murmured absently, really much more interested in what he was doing with his mouth on the soft skin of her inner arm. His tongue gave a small lap inside her elbow and then traced patterns over the curve of her upper arm and the sweep of her shoulder. he finally lifted his head, his lips inches from hers and just looked at her. Their gazes clashing and intermingling until there was just nothing but them. "Well? Why do you think I'm fat?" She demanded, still not quite having forgiven him for saying she'd put on weight. She knew she hadn't.

"You're not fat." He told her as if explaining to a small child. He tilted his head on a grin ad informed her with a small smile.

"You're pregnant."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A/N2: okay, so I'm good with the cliffies. I want your opinions on this. It's not written in stone whether or not there will be a third edition to the Huddy progeny or not, so yay or nay peeps?

We want another baby in this story or not?

Hit that big ol' purple button to leave your vote.

Next chapter will have more Carmen and Benicio and, of course, the result of my impromptu little poll here.


	5. Chapter 5

Wehey! Look at this!

All not writerish blockery!

I think I got so pissed yesterday that I scared it away. Um…about that. Apologies for my behaviour in the author's note but I was just SO annoyed that I had to vent.

Sorry guys.

Umm…as to the results of the baby poll, mostly it's a great big YUS but I'm still mainly undecided (PJo4ever: WHAT!!??!! I'm not gonna kill off a baby! If I want rank depression of the House variety I'll watch the show thanks bunches!)

There are three things I won't write about; child abuse (yes, touched on that in this story but you'll note I got squeamish and backed off real quick); rape and miscarriages because I'm depressed by these things in real life and I can really do without revisiting them in my hobby.

However, if you want tragedy, read 'The Inspirationals' as that is shaping up to be quite the weepy…when I get around to updating it that is.

This chapter's mainly talking heads with a cameo of Huddy at the end. I think I did okay, mainly an exercise in writing conversations but, meh, lemme know in yer reviews.

**Time to Talk**

Ben opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn't as bright light stabbed his retinas and jack-hammered into his skull. He moaned in pain and pressed his hands to his head, blocking out the light. He was aware of movement, familiar steps treading over the carpet and a weight dipping the mattress at his side.

"Finally decided to join the living did we?" Her voice was sardonic and her accent didn't quite manage to cover how extremely pissed she was at him.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded and winced his way into a sitting position. "I don't want you here."

"I am all to aware of that, but it was either me looking after you or your sister taking time away from her family to look after your sorry arse." Carmen sniffed as she shoved a cup of coffee strong enough to plaster walls into his hand and sipped from her mug of tea. "It was Lisa that found you, if you even care, and it was Greg that patched you up since you managed to get yourself into such a state." She snapped at him and Ben winced at every syllable. His sister had seen him like this? Oh god.

"What day is it?" He managed to grumble.

"Tuesday…you've been out for most of two days." Ben's head came up sharply, but a wave of mind numbing pain stopped him from catching the look of concern on her face. By the time the room stopped spinning she was as remote as ever. She looked…fantastic. Her hair was swept back into a sleek neat bun at the nape of her neck with soft curls tumbling about her face in wispy strands of fire. Her blue eyes flashed, her skin practically glowed and, as always, she was dressed impeccably in designer gear.

Ben was unshaven, unwashed and dressed in nothing but a set of Spider-man underwear. Talk about your inferiority complex. Ben scrubbed a hand over his stubble roughened jaw and drank down his coffee, ignoring the scalding his tongue received. "Well, I'm awake now, so you can go." He waved a dismissive hand at her and she narrowed those laser blue eyes at him with such a venomous look he thought his head might fall off.

"I'm not going anywhere, you and I have to talk." She rose to her feet and looked imperiously down her nose at him. "Get up, have a shave- and for god's sake a shower- and get down stairs. You and I aren't through yet." She snapped at him, spun on one heel and then stalked out of the room. Ben watched her go with a pained scowl and sipped from his coffee cup again. Who the hell did she think she was anyway?

_Try the woman you love, you dolt._ Came the unwelcome reply and Ben scowled a little harder. He supposed the sooner he got dressed, the sooner he could throw her out and demand that she never come near him again. That sounded like a plan.

Yeah, a plan to make them both miserable, but as long as she suffered more than he did he was up for it.

He hoped.

HHHHH

Carmen strode out into the hallway and reached the top of the stairs. Her hand came down on the cold of the banister and she swallowed hard. Grief clawed raw at her insides, she was splitting apart inside from missing him. Missing his smile, missing the way he made corny jokes, missing the way he told her he loved every morning, hell, she just plain missed him. He was right in the next room but he had never been so far away as he was now. Carmen shut her eyes tightly against the pain of it and, though she was aware of the silvery tears slipping down her pale face, she couldn't quite bring herself to stop them.

She put a manicured hand to her mouth to hold back the sobs and her legs folded under her, dropping her to a broken crouch on the top step of his stairs. Stairs he had carried her up, kissing her neck and whispering molten words in her ears. Her hand was so tight on the banister that her knuckles cracked. Her head fell so far forward that her forehead touched her knees.

She heard movement behind her and jack knifed into standing position, whirling elegantly on one heel and sweeping the moisture from her eyes in one fluid movement. She rearranged her face into that same emotionless mask that she had trained it to in his bedroom and was the picture of composition as he exited his room.

"That was quick." She noted.

He scrubbed a hand through his still damp hair and nodded. "The sooner we get this over with the sooner you can get out of here."

His tone was like a knife through her chest but she didn't even flicker an eyelid. "Of course, it's your house." She turned smoothly and descended the stairs in a smooth even gait while he winced as his ripped bandaged feet came into contact with the worn floor boards. Protesting under the bulk of his weight, his muscles screaming at whatever strain he'd put them through the past week. He couldn't really remember most of it. Mostly he remembered being absolutely miserable, and the alcohol didn't seem to have helped that any. He followed her blindly down to the kitchen where she poured herself a fresh mug of tea and handed him a glass of water and two aspirin. He threw them back over his throat without a word of thanks and stared at her from sunken bloodshot eyes.

"Well?"

She blew softly over her tea and appeared to arrange her thoughts into some kind of order before speaking calmly and coolly to him.

"Why do you think I've been unfaithful to you?"

Ben rocked back on his heels and his feet screamed in protest but he refused to sit down. The physical pain was a minor distraction from the agony that seemed to be ripping through his chest at the moment. He almost savoured it. "Does it matter? I know you were."

"And I know I wasn't." She sounded almost belligerent for a moment and then covered it by sipping from her tea. "It matters to me."

"Well, darling, you'll have to excuse me if I don't give a fuck about what matters to you."

"How charming." Disdain was back in her tone. Something solid and safe for her to hide behind. "You never did trust me, did you? You took one look at me and thought 'pretty bed partner but I don't think I'll keep her'. Oh, don't look so shocked, Ben, I've been getting that look all my life." She was almost smiling now, her disdain seeming to have twisted into something that was so distasteful for her it was almost amusing. "You never loved me, I doubt you know what real love is."

"Don't even…" He started but she cut him off with a lethal quiet tone.

"You said so yourself, Ben, women are your weakness, you just can't say no to them. So at the first sign of some actual responsibility, you took the first excuse you could and threw it in my face. You _know_ I've been with no one since we started our…fling."

"How could I know that?" He demanded hotly and she didn't even arch a brow at him.

"When would I have had the chance?" She gestured with her cup as she rested her other hand on the counter behind her. "Would it have been in the hospital after I had that allergic reaction and seizure? Would it have been while I was recovering here and you were out at work, I mean, after I'd slept for twenty hours a day of course." She smirked at him a trifle sadly. "Maybe it was when I was with you at the building, going over plans with you? Plenty of strong burly men about then, wasn't there? But then, you never did let me out of your sight."

"With good reason as it turns out." He snapped at her. "You could have done it any time you chose, with any man you wanted because they all fall at your feet. I guess that's just too much of a power trip to give up for some homey little construction worker." His tone was bitter but seemed to wash over her like water off a duck's back.

"You're not really angry at me, Ben, because this isn't my fault."

Ben looked at her like she was insane and then said in slowly exaggerated tones. "Oh, I think you fucking another man and getting knocked up by him is definitely your fault, Carmen."

"You're sterile aren't you?" She shrugged negligently as he reeled backwards from her in shock. "At least, you think you are."

"How did you…?" He stared at her on a lethal glower which she ignored.

"It's the only thing that fits. You weren't too fussed when we weren't careful enough, you always look at the twins like you wished you had a set of your own, you haven't been to the doctor since you were twenty and, of course, there is the tiny little fact that you point blank refuse to believe that this child is yours. Which, she is, by the way."

His eyes dropped to her belly and he frowned slightly. "You know it's a girl already?" All the anger seemed to have bled out of him.

"Mother's intuition." Carmen pressed her lips together in a tight line and looked away from him for a moment. It was the first real sign of emotion that he had seen from her and he clung to it. Maybe it did matter to her after all. "Now, Ben, I grew up without a father, and I would prefer it if my daughter didn't have to…but I won't foist this on you and I won't beg. It's your choice."

His shoulders slumped and a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding whooshed out of his lungs. So, this was all for the kid. He looked back up at her. His eyes a hard glass that she couldn't read. "Is it money that you're after?"

She stiffened as if slapped. "No." She almost spat the word at him. "I don't need to feel anything more like a whore, thanks very much." Her voice was tight and barely restrained and it took him a moment to realise that he had succeeded in making her angry. "I just thought…you could be involved if you wanted. My first ultrasound is next week."

He shrugged and forced a nonchalant expression onto his face. "Good luck with that."

She sighed and lifted her arm, letting her tee splatter out uselessly into the sink and drain away. She watched it and then rinsed out the cup and left it on the drying board. "I see." Her back was to him now and he could almost imagine that she was actually upset about this. "Well, I'll be going now. Lisa would appreciate it if you didn't drink yourself into a stupor again as the twins and your mother _are_ quite attached to you." She dried her hands with quick efficient movements and then settled the towel deliberately over the back of the remaining kitchen chair. He would have to make new ones or, hell, just go to Ikea.

"I'll try and bear that in mind." He told her and she moved to walk past him. His hand moved of its own accord and latched around her arm, stopping her inches from him. "Did I ever really matter to you?"

She looked up at him and blue clashed with green. There was a sea of things flowing through her gaze. Anger, hurt, probably even desire and a stubborn streak a mile wide.

"Did you ever really trust me?" She shot back and he straightened away from her. His fingers slowly released her arm. "I suppose not then." He didn't know if she was answering his question or her own. She turned away then, breaking the contact and her head tilted forward slightly. It was the first time he had ever seen her actually look down. Carmen had a habit of holding her head high. "I don't forgive easily, Ben, soon I won't be able to." She raised her gaze back to his and looked like she wanted to reach out to him but something stopped her. "I can never admit to something I didn't do." She told him.

"And I can never believe that you didn't."

She nodded then. "On your own head be it." She said in a low tone and reached for her coat, swinging it gracefully about her slim shoulders. She arched up on her toes and brushed her lips over his before he had a chance to react. The contact was fleeting but it rocketed through him reminding him in a flash what he was throwing away.

"Goodbye, Ben." She said softly and then stalked through the house. Her heels echoing off the too empty hardwood floors and the slam of the door reverberating through the house like a thunderclap.

Ben stood in the kitchen and stared down at his bandaged feet. He suddenly didn't feel so self righteous. He suddenly felt like a fool. He examined his hands as if looking for blame on the calluses there.

He lifted his head on a sigh and looked out to the watery autumn sunshine that seemed too damn chipper for a day like today.

Ben. She had called him Ben. Not Benicio as she always had. At least, she had when she'd had any affection at all for him. He had loved the way her accent had rolled the word out of her mouth on that husky purr of a voice of hers. He had a sinking feeling that he would never be Benicio ever again.

"God, I miss being Benicio."

His voice echoed in the empty kitchen and he sighed, the sound swallowing itself when there was nothing else there to absorb it.

HHHHH

"We need to talk." House announced as he ambled into her office. He had come dressed for battle today. Steel grey suit with black turtle neck, black Italian shoes and, of course, his favourite lion-head ebony cane…which he understood was known as the 'pimp-stick' in some circles. He had a sneaking suspicion that he had his delectable fiancé to thank for that particular nickname.

She didn't even lift her head. "Busy."

He sighed and limped over, snatching the file from under her nose. "Not anymore!" He told her brightly and she lifted her head on a scowl this time. "Good morning, my sweet." He told her mischievously and dropped a kiss on her nose before retreating quickly back across the desk before he lost his own nose.

"We have nothing to talk about." She told him forcibly and with extra glare just in case he decided to get any ideas.

Well, too late for that one.

"Uh, yes we do, nursery colours for one. Names are another one, bets on gender and/or number of progeny. Do women in your family always have litters?"

Her glare intensified. "I'm not pregnant."

"Yes you are." He told her gently but sarcastically.

"I'm not. If I was, I'd have horrific all-day sickness, back ache, swollen ankles and mood swings like you wouldn't believe." She slapped her palms down on the desk. "And that was just in the _first_ trimester!"

"Sounds rough." He noted and she slumped back into her seat giving him a 'tell me about it' look. "Why didn't you tell me it was bad with the twins?"

She shrugged. "You never asked."

He scowled. "That seems to cover a lot of misdemeanours in your life."

"Yes, how dare I have a rotten pregnancy?" She asked archly.

"Prove me wrong then, get a test."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want…" She looked away from him.

"You don't want another kid?"

"No…"

"Then you don't want another one of _my_ kids?"

"Hello? Marrying you here." She said under an arched brow and he gestured wildly.

"What then?"

"The first time around I was…"

"Scared?"

"Try terrified. I've never been so frightened or felt so alone in my life. I felt like I'd barely gotten my own life on track and then suddenly these two new little _beings_ were coming and I would be responsible for them. I would have to feed and clothe them, give them names, make the right decisions for them…and I'd have to do it alone."

"You did great. Even on your own. The twins are better than any other dad's kids and I barely had to do anything to raise them…which may have something to do with it incidently…" He trailed off as if to give it thought and reached for her, taking her wrist in his hand and stroking a thumb over her pulse, under her silver charm bracelet. "You won't be alone this time."

"You say that now, wait until I throw up all over you."

"Hello? Marrying you here." He grinned at her. "Sickness and health all that junk, right?"

"You're so corny." She told him on a smirk and stepped into his embrace as he leant against her desk. "I still don't think I'm pregnant though."

"Will you at least get the test now? Or do I have to harpoon you and get Foreman to sit on you while I take blood?"

"I think I can run it myself." She patted his shoulder as if to reassure him and he dropped a kiss on her lips. "Mmm! Not at work." She warned him, slightly muffled by his lips.

His hand smoothed over her back. "You sure?"

"Well…maybe just a little…"


	6. Chapter 6

Hullo there ma wee chickadees!

Yus, updates galore now that I'm back from ma holibags. I was actually reduced to writing this one pen and paper while I was away (my fingers…! They bleed!) so no complaining about the time it took to get this.

Harrumph.

I actually did some research for this one. My phobia usually sends me running screaming from the room whenever things of the pre-natal variety are mentioned so be glad I'm getting over my squeamishness.

That's right, I'm afraid of pregnancy.

I freely admit it.

I have nightmares about being pregnant, not dreams, nightmares.

I'm a very vivid dreamer.

Anyway, enough about my weirdness. Read and review me and I might even figure out what to do about 'The Inspirationals'.

Oooooooooh incentive!

**Change of Heart**

Ram arched one fiery red eyebrow and hummed in general disbelief. He looked up to meet Carmen's stunning blue gaze and frowned at her.

"Are you having me on?" He asked in a rather good imitation of her own English accent.

She grinned and shook her head.

"There's another person? Inside you?" He looked at her only slightly convex belly and hummed again.

"Yes, another very small person." Carmen explained for the fifth or sixth time. He was absolutely refusing to believe that another living thing could be inside her.

"Smaller than a baby?" Ram continued to study her exposed stomach. She held up the hem of her black shirt with one hand and held a cup of steaming tea in the other. Ram leant forward and prodded her just below her navel. She stifled a laugh and stepped away before he got anymore ideas. She retreated to the other side of the breakfast table and tucked her shirt back in to the hem of her dark jeans.

"A very, very small baby." She clarified and Ram nodded slowly as if he knew she was off her rocker but didn't have the heart to tell her. "About this big." She continued and held up her thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. "She weighs about an ounce and has fingerprints already."

Ram looked down at his own hands and then back to Carmen like he suspected a cruel joke. Now she had to be lying.

"Not possible." He stated flatly and Carmen just smiled.

"True." A mulish look came over Ram's face. "I'll prove it today. I'm going to get a picture taken of her. well, actually it's a video."

Ram looked horrified. "They put a camera _inside_ you!?"

Carmen hurried to reassure him. The wee mite was fiercely overprotective of her and all she needed was for him to kick her obstetrician in the shins because he thought the poor sod was about to slice her open and film her innards. "No, darling, they have a special camera that…um, well it sort of looks through me to see the baby inside. It doesn't hurt at all." She illustrated by sweeping her palm across the front of her shirt. Ram fidgeted with his spoon and looked like she'd just told him she was going to have another head transplanted on because she was tired of the way this one looked.

"Like…an x-ray?" Ram asked slowly.

"Smart boy," she ruffled his hair on a wide grin. "Almost exactly like." The truth was she had no idea how an ultrasound worked, beyond the vaguest general terms, only that it did work and that was good enough for her. Ram continued to think this over furiously as he ate his Cheerios. He finished them in short order and Carmen sat compatibly with him sipping her tea. The worst of her morning sickness was over, but anything heavier than liquid tended to have her praising the porcelain god again and she was in no hurry to revisit that morning ritual. She roused herself from her internal musings when Ram began to fidget. "You want more?" She pushed the cereal towards him. Greg had ordered her to get him to put on more weight. He was still a bit scrawny and another five pounds would do him the world of good apparently.

"Carmen…?" He began slowly while still fidgeting. The boy could fidget for Britain.

"Hmm?" She could be patient. He was coming on leaps and bounds with his confidence and had become much better at articulating himself. She was still one of the few people he would actually have a conversation with and he tended to stick with one word answers whenever he could but he was improving. Strangers were still a complete verbal no-go zone and she was working on getting him to at least say hello.

"When's Ben coming back?"

Carmen inhaled sharply in surprise and her fingers tightened over her mug of tea. Ram immediately looked contrite.

"Sorry." He blurted and Carmen forced an easy smile onto her lips. She shook her head and braced herself for the coming conversation. .

"Not your fault, darling. I've been meaning to talk to you about this anyway." She inhaled deeply again and thought about how best to put this. How best to explain a very adult problem to an eight year old. "Ben isn't coming back." She finally decided on keeping it as simple as possible. Ram rocked back in his chair, his silver eyes going very wide.

"Is it because of me?" He said in a terribly small voice and Carmen could have quite happily strangled Ben for making Ram doubt himself this way. "No, Ram, don't ever think that. Ben left because of me…and himself." She added after a beat, having to remind herself that she'd done nothing wrong either. "We had a falling out." Understatement of the century.

"What kind of falling out?"

"He thinks I lied to him about something very important and he won't believe that I didn't."

"That's not very nice." Ram blurted indignantly and Carmen almost managed a smile. His small face was suddenly serious. "Do you think he might come and see me sometime?"

Carmen smiled at him warmly and promptly lied through her teeth. "Of course he will. We're going to see your aunt Lisa today, he might be there to visit the twins." She would deal with his disappointment then rather than now. "Right then." She said, forcing brightness. "Away and dressed with you, you little scallywag." She chased him giggling out of the kitchen and stopped to listen to him thundering through to his bedroom in the small apartment she had found for them. It was taking a while but she was turning this place into a home for them both.

Who'd have thought? Carmen House, legal bitch extraordinaire turned to domestic bliss. She shook her head at herself and caught the flash of golden red in the mirror above the small fireplace in the lounge. She arched up on her toes and turned sideways to view her profile, smoothing her black satin shirt flush against her skin. There was definitely a slight bump there but that was no big deal she'd been practically concave before.

Good Lord, soon she'd have swollen ankles, be craving strawberry ice cream and pickles and have to wear some kind of horrific maternity wear with (shudder) an elasticised waist.

"What's funny?"

Carmen hadn't even realised that she'd been laughing out loud at herself. she managed to regain control of herself and turned to make sure that he was presentable. He stood in the doorway tucking in his shirt and trying to wriggle his feet into the Timberland boots that he favoured. It did not go unnoticed by her that he was dressed nearly identically to the way that Ben dressed for going to work. A flannel shirt over a black or white tank top, worn jeans, clomping boots and a battered baseball cap pulled down over slightly too long hair.

"Nothing, darling, looking very handsome today." She fussed with his shirt collar and saw that he had opted for a deep blue tank top to go with the checks on his shirt.

"You look pretty too." He told her dutifully and she smiled down at him.

"I have you well trained." She patted his cap idly as she shouldered her bag. Helping Ram into his sports jacket (New York Yankees, he was going to get them both mugged) she pulled on her cashmere coat and clicked her way towards the door. Ram bounded along behind her while she jangled her keys over manicured fingers.

"Ready teddy?" She asked him brightly and he giggled at her turn of phrase nodding furiously. She threw open the door, saw who was on the other side, fist raised to knock and stopped dead in her tracks.

Ram had no such problem and flew past her to rocket into the surprised arms of the man in the hallway.

"Ben!" He cried joyously.

"What are you doing?"

Lisa Cuddy would like to think, that after twenty years of knowing the man, she might have some kind of insight into the convoluted process that was Gregory House's thinking. She was, however, completely clueless as to what was going on in his head at this moment in time and why he was thinking about it in this particular room of their home.

"Sitting." He answered obliquely and she fought the urge to close the distance between them and box him about the ears for being so…_him._ She sighed and looked briefly about the room instead.

"Obviously." She answered flatly. There was, after all, nothing else to do in this room. The decorating of the house had been done in a hurry to put it mildly and she had been at a loose end as to what to do with the fourth bedroom. She hadn't expected another person might be needing it. As such, it had remained undecorated and she had been toying with the idea of a home office. Cream and magnolia offered a blank canvas over every surface. The only source of colour came from the huge round portal of the stained glass window that was such a prominent feature in all the bedrooms. This one was about six feet across and quartered into the four seasons with lively representations of spring, summer, autumn and winter gleaming with coloured and painted glass. The only other feature in the room was the window seat that followed the lower curve of the window in a bowl shaped crescent with plush cream cushioning. Greg sat in the lowest point of the curve, fidgeting with his lion head cane. The ebony and silver made slightly incongruous against the backdrop of his blue and white striped pyjama bottoms and white tee that stretched across his chest.

Lisa sighed as she tightened her robe's sash about her still slim waist and padded across the thick carpet to sit beside him. She huddled close to him and rested her head against his shoulder.

"What woke you?" She asked, dreading the answer she feared she already knew. She didn't want his leg to be getting worse. She didn't want him to hurt anymore.

"I just wanted to be awake." He answered her softly.

She felt a slight frown pull at her features and tilted her head so that her chin rested on his shoulder. Her hand smoothed gently over his thigh, tracing the warped twisted flesh of the scarring there.

"Not too bad today?" She had to know.

"Not terrible." He dismissed it as his eyes roamed about the room, pausing here and there as if seeing something of interest and then moving onto the next item that caught his mind's eye. He didn't pull her hand away from his leg though and she could feel the already tense muscles relaxing under her ministrations in a physical sigh of relief. She felt a slow smile tug her lips.

"What are you doing?" She paused a beat before elaborating. "I mean, besides sitting."

"Thinking." He said slowly and she resisted another urge to thump him.

"About what?" She prodded.

He turned to look at her, their faces barely an inch apart. "A nursery." He turned back to the room at large as she blinked in surprise. "One for a little girl." He elaborated and she straightened away from him with an imperiously arched brow.

"You know something I don't?"

"We're having a girl." He informed her confidently.

"Oh, are we?"

"Well, my physical input is pretty much over and done with." He said, not really paying attention to the conversation but rather to the nursery he could see in his head.

Lisa's mind tripped back over the heated memories of the night before. She was fairly certain that his 'physical input' would never quite be over and done with.

Thank God.

"So, I'm going to do her room." He finished on a small smile and looked at her expectantly.

Now, Lisa was 90 sure that he just said these things to get a rise out of her so she blinked very slowly and said very eloquently.

"Huh?"

"I'm going to do the nursery." He reiterated. Yes, that had been what he had said before.

"Uum…why?"

"You got to do the rest of the house?" He asked back and she realised then and there that he was deadly serious about this. She folded her arms over her satin robe clad chest and arched a brow.

"Well I can tell you right now that the 'Nightmare Before Christmas' theme is just not happening."

"Ah, but you don't have a say in the matter." He grinned down at her.

"Want to bet?"

"Never bet with a pregnant woman." He told her soberly and she couldn't help but laugh at him. "This is my thing." He tried suddenly to explain. "I'm going to be here from the start this time and I want to do my bit." He sounded almost defensive as he looked at her expecting her to argue. She found she couldn't. She would never tell him this, because he would fiercely deny it, but she thought it was cute. Adorable that he was taking an interest, an active one instead of the apathetic observation she had been half expecting.

It was nice to know that he could still surprise her.

"Coming back to bed?" She asked suddenly and he was nearly thrown by the change in conversation. He recovered quickly with one of his quips.

"Woman, you're going to wear me out before we even get to the famed 'second trimester sex'." He mocked her gently and she slapped his arm in light reproach.

"To sleep, you lech." She grumbled around a yawn and rose to her feet, intending to catch some more sleep even if he wasn't.

He stood slowly, a little unsteady after sitting still for so long. She slipped under his arm and supported him out of the door and back towards their bedroom. She left his side only briefly to check on the boys. She found them sprawled across their beds. Tonio having kicked his covers off and Niki the wrong way round with his feet under his pillow. Both of them had their dogs on the bed with them and she frowned. Apparently 'just this once' got a refresher every night and she strongly suspected that Daddy had been the authorisation behind that one.

"Everyone asleep?" Greg asked as she slipped back under his shoulder and trailed along the hallway back towards their bedroom.

"Mm-hmm, Saturday cartoons don't start until 6:45am. They'll sleep until then."

"Huh, I'd like to see them do that on a school day."

Lisa looked at him askance. "I'd like to see you do that _any _day."

He mock gasped and tried to look offended while she shut the doors behind them. He went completely still as she padded around their massive bed and let her robe slide from her shoulders and pool on the floor at her feet. She threw back the sheets, wearing nothing but her smile and slipped between them.

Greg limped around the bed and lifted his cane, letting the lion head nose along her skin and hook on the edge of the sheet. Her eyes never left his as he tugged the sheet lower inch by inch until it caught on her hips.

"I thought we were sleeping?" He asked while trying to finesse the sheet a little lower. She snatched his cane from his hand and pitched it neatly over the other side of the bed. Grinning wickedly and pulling him closer with an insistent tug on his hand.

"That was only if you could think of nothing better to do."

His answering grin was suggestion enough.

Carmen couldn't decide whether to be overjoyed or to fume in silent rage. She forbid herself any outward emotional reaction so managed some kind of internal hybrid between the two emotions. It was a kind of giddy urge to maim him and then kiss it better. She shot a glance at him across the expanse of his battered truck. Ram sat in the middle seat in the back so that Ben could see him in the rear view mirror as they talked.

Ben, focal point of her mental bipolarity this morning. She couldn't believe it. One day he's almost drop kicking her out of his home at the mere mention of a child that apparently has nothing to do with him. The next; he's turning up unannounced to chauffeur her and her adopted son to an ultrasound appointment that he had turned his nose up at the week before. She narrowed her eyes at him as she watched his profile. What was he up to?

Her expression morphed to one of benign observation as he turned to look at her.

"Yes, Carmen?" He asked her and her hand itched to slap hard across his face at the polite tone of his voice.

"Loretta's has a new collection in." She said simply, nodding towards the window display of one of her favoured shops that they had just driven past.

"Oh." He sounded almost disappointed. Bastard. What did he expect? He'd called her a whore, thrown everything she had thought they'd had together in her face and then stormed out the door. She was supposed to just welcome him back with open arms?

Not bloody likely.

He licked his lips. He was nervous. Good.

"So, how have you been?" He finally asked and she nearly picked her handbag up just so she would have something solid and heavy to swing at his head.

"Pregnant." She said flatly and Ram interjected readily, oblivious to the tension running thick and fast between the two adults. He told Ben brightly about enrolling in the academy, being really clever in math, painting a big picture in nothing but dots like the 'Pressionists' and how the principal always spoke to Carmen whenever he saw her.

Ben looked over at Carmen somewhat sharply.

"Making new friends?" He asked casually and Carmen's blood pressure rose another notch while she raised a lethally arched brow that, in her court days, had indicated she was going for the harshest punishment available.

"I'm apparently very good at it." She said with a voice that barely shook.

"Hmm." Ben said and the scream that Carmen was forcing back down was beginning to hurt her throat. Her face ached from keeping it schooled into a suitable non-expression. She was almost certain that her hand was bleeding from where her white knuckled fist had forced her manicured nails into her flesh. She willed herself to look away from him and out the window at the passing scenery of New Jersey. God, she was beginning to get sick of the sight of this place. She wondered if it would be detrimental to Ram's well-roundedness to move somewhere prettier.

"We're here." Ben announced as he swung the truck into the parking lot of Princeton-Plainsboro. Carmen practically shot out of the passenger side before Ben could round the hood and help her down as was his habit. The resultant speed at which she hit the first frost of the season nearly had her falling.

"Careful!" Ben's arm slid around her waist and bodily lifted her from the slick ground before placing her on the salted sidewalk. She was left reeling as he released her before she could even glare at him and went to help Ram out the back of the truck.

Carmen resolutely dug into her purse for her appointment details by way of retaining some modicum of dignity. Stupid man! Stupid hormones for having her heart leap like that when he touched her. Stupid pining need that had her wanting to touch him back.

"Carmen?"

"Hmm?" Carmen jumped in surprise as the deep voice issued far too close to her ear and she nearly fell again as she back-pedalled violently away from him.

"You okay?" Ram asked in concern while Ben steadied her with one strong hand on her arm.

No. She was not okay. She felt like her entire world was spinning out of control because the only man she had ever loved had thrown it in her face and was apparently here to see how much more damage he could inflict. She pasted on a bright smile and pinged a finger against Ram's cap. "Fine, darling. Just excited to see what the baby looks like." She lied smoothly while firmly removing Ben's hand from her arm.

"Will I get to see?" Ram asked eagerly, placing his small cool hand in hers. She made a mental note to buy him some gloves and ignored how Ben was firmly attached on the boy's other side by a small hand in his huge callused one.

"If you really want to, you can see after. They're going to give me a DVD of the baby." She explained and she could feel Ben's eyes on her. She knew he wouldn't ask. There would be no easy relegation to the waiting room for him. He would be coming right in for the whole live performance.

"I'm staying with uncle Greg while you're getting filmed?" Ram already knew where he was going but he liked to be doubly sure. He had to know where Carmen would be in relation to himself as often as possible. "You're one floor up?"

"That's right." Carmen assured him and Ram grinned back. There wasn't even a shadow of the frightened scrawny boy of a few months ago in that bright sunny grin of his.

Carmen couldn't help but give a real smile back. At least on of them was healing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, children, I'm going with the short and sweet approach for this one, as you may be able to tell. **

**Um…the inspiration was not so forthcoming with this story so I just wanted to post what was good. **

**Reviews and suggestions are most welcome.**

**Thinking About It**

Ben leant by the window in the ob-gyn clinic and stared out at the red fall leaves whisking through the air as winter gave its first great huff of frigid breath through the streets and alleys of New Jersey. Carmen flipped idly through a magazine at his side, her tousled hair nearly touching his hip she was so close. The rest of the waiting room was filled with women in varying stages of pregnancy. Some of them heavily pregnant obvious first-timers and others sitting with two or three children at their knee. Veterans waiting to see what they'd already seen.

He looked down at Carmen, realising that she fell into neither category. She flipped through her magazine with the cool detachment of one who has seen and done it all. Never mind that she hadn't ever been pregnant before or that he knew that she was terrified at the prospect of motherhood…you'd never be able to discern it from her face.

Ben caught the other mothers-to-be eyeing them speculatively. Him because he was the only man in the unit that wasn't employed here and Carmen because she looked equally out of place. He wondered suddenly if it had always been this way for her. Always on the outside looking in. Always marked apart, never fitting into the clique.

He supposed he'd have nerves of steel and a flawless mask over his emotions too, if he had lived her life.

The urge to reach out to her, to touch her hair or skim his knuckles down over her cheek, to clasp her hand in his…it was damn near overwhelming.

Ben looked at her and wondered how the hell he fixed this. How did you heal a wound like the one he had inflicted upon their relationship? How do you even begin to say sorry for things that never should have been said to the one you loved? How could he have been so stupid as to doubt her?

Ben had managed to wait all of five minutes after she had walked out on him before calling up his doctor and demanding an appointment. Dr Dinwoodie had been only to pleased to welcome Ben back into the fold of the frequently medically examined and had promptly laid Ben's fears about sterility to rest.

Ben had explained about contracting Mumps in his early twenties and about how he knew that the risk of sterility was high for young men with the disease. Dr Dinwoodie had listened to Ben's monologue with a calm demeanour and steepled fingers and had assured Ben, with one of his most solemn looks, that if he was any dimmer he'd be dark. It was young men in their _teens_ that had been at risk from being rendered sterile and Ben, at twenty three, had been beyond risk. Dr Dinwoodie had promised to conduct the tests anyway if it would put Ben's mind at rest.

It would and it had.

The baby was his. Had to be. Now he was so deep in the shit with the woman he loved that he didn't think she'd ever forgive him. He had only to cover the gaping chasm of impossibility that was getting Carmen to let him back into her life, her bed and her heart.

The first one he had already managed and so long as he stayed in mixed company, he wouldn't be rebutted to firmly so he would remain a prominent and permanent fixture. The second would probably be nearly as easy her appetite for him, and he for her, had been voracious in the politest of terms. The last one though, getting her to forgive him and admit she still loved him…that one would be the hardest of all.

Ben wasn't about to give up though. It was a challenge but one that he was ready to take on. He'd been an idiot, but now he knew all the facts. He wasn't about to give up on her.

Not by a long shot.

**$inister $cribe**

"Carmen!" Lisa grinned at her friend and then it slipped from her face into a surprised frown when her brother filled the doorway behind the slim English woman. "And Ben what a…um, come in." She recovered as quickly as she was able and welcomed them inside with a wave of her arm. She took their coats and Ram ran past them all to go and find the twins to play with. They were currently kicking their father's ass at some kind of Playstation game. Ben kissed his sister's cheek and smiled warmly at her before following after the fiery haired little boy, albeit at a more sedate pace. Lisa turned back around to see Carmen slouching against the entryway wall, her head thrown back and her eyes closed, her lips a thin white line as she obviously held herself in check.

"Carmen?" Lisa reached out to her friend but stopped when Carmen lifted on manicured hand and waved her away.

"Don't touch me right now, Lisa, I don't…" Carmen heaved in a breath, opened her eyes and blinked rapidly. She straightened away from the wall and tugged her shirt to smooth it out. Abruptly in control again. Lisa would pay real money to know how she managed to flip a u-turn with her emotions like that. "I'm okay…I may have to kill your brother, but I'm okay now."

Something sank in Lisa's chest. "What's he done now?"

"He's…changed his mind, the baby's his now."

"It is his."

"I _know_ that." Carmen gritted and then reined her temper back in sharply. She wasn't annoyed with Lisa. It wasn't Lisa she wanted to eviscerate via the nasal cavity, it was her wretch of a big brother. "But he's obviously decided to see the light and get his head out of his arse!" She snapped and stalked the length of the house to the kitchen where she could clatter cupboards and do nothing in particular but make a great deal of noise as she did it. The puppies trailed after her and bounced around her feet. She threw open the fridge and hauled a juice carton out, hauled open a cupboard and yanked down a beaker, filled one with the other and slapped the carton back onto the countertop. The puppies bounced jovially around her feet and she steadfastly ignored them. She was quite happy to nurse her foul mood thank you very much.

"You want to talk about it?" Lisa asked carefully, taking the carton away from her friend and putting it back in the fridge. She spoke quietly so no one could hear them in the lounge a few feet away on the other side of the hearth. She dodged overexcited puppies and mopped up the spilled juice moving slowly so as not to spook Carmen anymore than she already was.

"No, I don't want to talk about it!" She hissed, forgetting she wasn't angry at Lisa. Lisa took it all in her stride, she was used to taking on the House temper when she had to and, to be honest, Carmen was a lot less scarier than her brother. "I mean, it's one thing to fuck with me, I can take it, but the bastard's using Ram against me now! He knows I can't tell him to fuck off and die when my son is listening!" Carmen waved her arm expansively while conducting this entire venting session at a volume barely over an irate whisper.

The puppies thought this was a fabulous game and bounded up to lean against Carmen's knees and grin up at her with long pink lolling tongues.

"I don't know what he's playing at but he went to the ob-gyn, scan-type appointment today and…"

"Oh, you have scan photos."

"I have a dvd and it was magical but can we focus on how much your brother is screwing me over right now?"

Lisa began to laugh.

"This isn't funny!" Carmen blurted at her and Lisa just laughed harder.

"Sorry, it's just that…you're annoyed now because he's screwing with you when a couple of months ago you were pissed because he wouldn't even touch you."

"Lisa…it's not…" Carmen shut her eyes and slid down the cupboard doors to sit on the floor in a graceful heap. Lisa immediately felt contrite for laughing. Especially when she saw the shimmer of tears in Carmen's deep blue eyes. She crouched down next to her friend and settled an arm around her shoulders.

"I know, it's not funny."

Carmen tilted her head and rested it against Lisa's shoulder. She just really needed her friend at the moment. She felt like she suddenly had to hold up everything all by herself and she didn't know if she was strong enough to do it on her own. Carmen shook slightly but still managed to hold herself back from a complete and utter breakdown. This was neither the time nor the place for it.

Lisa looked up in surprise when a broad hand landed on her shoulder. she turned to see Ben looking down at her and gently pulling her away from Carmen.

"Look out for Ram, will you?" He asked her quietly.

She bit her lip and looked back to see Carmen with her knees curled up against her chest and her head resting against them. She had completely curled in on herself and Lisa had the feeling that there was nothing she could do for her friend. This was something that Ben and Carmen would have to sort out between themselves. She nodded to Ben and rose to her feet. Ben smiled gratefully at her and it vanished when his sister slapped him hard on the arm, hard enough to bruise, and pointed a warning finger in his face with a glare. The warning was clear and Ben nodded, rubbing his arm.

He knelt beside Carmen and reached out to her. His hands clasped her shoulders and pulled her into his embrace. She resisted at first, not wanting him to see her cry, but he pulled her closer and tucked her head against his chest.

"I know you don't believe me, Carmen, but I am sorry."

She was quiet a long moment. Not moving, not returning his hold around her but not pulling away either.

"I don't forgive you." She said into his chest, her voice muffled by his shirt.

"I know." He smoothed a hand over her hair. "Will you at least give me a chance to try and earn it?"

"I'll make you suffer." It sounded almost like she was warning him off but he didn't take it that way.

"I know. You seem to like doing that." He sighed and she slapped him on almost the exact same place that Lisa had hit him. Damn women! He was going to lose the use of that arm if they kept this up.

"My heart bleeds." She muttered into his shirt again but her arms slid around his waist. "I'm _not_ making this easy for you." She reiterated.

"I wouldn't expect it any other way." Ben said and couldn't help but smile. It was a small victory in a much larger war.

But it was still a victory.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: okay peeps, here we are with the final story chapter of 'Family Ties' which I ,ahem, cough-forgot-about-cough. So, erm, anyways here we are with a wee update when everybody collectively pulls there heads out of their asses. _

_Which is a lot better story wise than it is visually. _

_This may be the last update for a while kiddies as I be moving to the new digs and I'm unsure when or if I can even get internet access there so ye may hafta wait a loooong while before such fics as…well, the rest of them may be updated. _

_There is an epilogue to this set at the House/Cuddy wedding which shall tie up all loose ends (hopefully) and have small boys dressed in the cutest pageboy outfits EVER. _

_Plus, babies shall be in attendance since it is set post-bump for the suitability of luverly dresses._

_Thassit, read and review me!!_

**To Forgive is Unexpected**

"Are you ever going to forgive him?"

Lisa strode into the living room that Carmen was currently inhabiting and glared at her friend, dumping her suitcase with a suitable flourish. Carmen followed the descent of the case and arched a fiery golden brow at her friend. She pursed her lips and appeared to think about it.

"Maybe." She returned to the book on pregnancy she was reading. She frowned behind the heavy frames of her horn-rimmed glasses and tilted the book up onto its end. "If this is what he's done to me then probably not." She mused more to herself than her friend and yelped when the book was snatched from her hands by a very angry and quite pregnant dean of medicine.

"He's miserable." Lisa enunciated slowly and Carmen scowled, snatching the book back and scrunching her long frame deeper into the couch.

"Good." Lisa glared at her again and Carmen ignored it. "Now he knows how it feels."

"So this is about revenge?" Lisa demanded, shoving Carmen's stocking soled feet of the end of the couch and dropping her now much heavier frame onto it. She was not only showing but had the circus tent maternity wear to go along with the attraction. She had forgotten how graceless she had felt with the twins. How elephantine…and how quickly her temper didn't so much as run out but up and disappeared. Something House was having no trouble adjusting to. His favourite flavour of Cuddy happened to be angry to the point of homicide…but the twins had nearly had a heart attack when she had yelled at the dogs to 'sit'. Imagine her chagrin when both boys had slapped to the floor faster than the puppies' tails could wag.

"What did you think it was going to be about?" Carmen flipped to the next page of her book, her eyes widened and then she snapped it shut. "Never _ever_ forgiving him if _this _happens!" Carmen snapped open the book in Lisa's face and watched as her friend paled several shades.

"Where the hell did you get this? Jack the Ripper's Medical Marvels?" She snatched the book from Carmen's hands and flipped it closed to peruse the front cover. '_Child Birth the Natural Way; Returning to the Roots of the Magical Act'_ read the green lettered title complete with a heavily pregnant woman in the full lotus position doing something rather interesting with a breast pump. Lisa's brows made a dash for her hairline. "I'm going to have to kill that husband-to-be of mine." She noted casually and Carmen laughed behind her hands, which she had clapped over her face in an effort to hide from the book in Lisa's hands.

"You love him really." Carmen peeked out from behind her hands and was relieved to see that the book had been shut and set aside.

"Speaking of!" Lisa levelled a threatening finger at Carmen. "When are you going to let up on Ben? You've done nothing but make him miserable for months."

"I'll let up on him." Carmen snapped and surged to her feet, striding across the room and staring at the fireplace a moment before whirling back. "When I think it's been long enough."

"Long enough for what? For him to give up completely and let himself be pushed away?" Lisa stood too and faced off to her friend.

"He called me a whore, rejected his child and only accepted the truth when _somebody else_ told him! I'm supposed to just forgive that?"

"Do you love him?"

"What a question…" Carmen turned away again and fidgeted with the silver picture frame surrounding a snapshot of the twins and Ram playing with the dogs in the backyard of the Household, as the stable conversion had come to be known.

"Well, it is the one on everybody's lips these days." Lisa retorted.

"Can you completely lose faith in someone and still love them?" Carmen asked the ceiling and then slid a look over at Lisa. Who was staring at her like she had two heads. Carmen gave a wry chuckle. "Exactly." She turned and draped her arms over the fireplace lounging against it, still managing to look Vogue even with a four and a half month bump under her maternity Versace shirt. Cuddy hadn't even known that Versace _did_ maternity wear. Carmen sighed.

"I don't know either."

Lisa sighed and said the only thing she could think of. "Somebody once told me that if you love someone then you love them when they're an idiot as well as when they're being brilliant. You're being an idiot, Ben still loves you. He was an idiot and the reason it hurts so freaking much is because you love him." She snatched up her suitcase and headed for the door. She opened it and then turned to look back at her friend. "Think about it, huh?"

Then she left. Leaving Carmen staring at the closed door and wondering if losing faith in Benicio had been her biggest display of idiocy yet.

**$inister $cribe**

Ben strode into the apartment and braced himself for the coming conversation. He had always had to steel himself from Carmen whenever they spoke. At first it had been because of her wicked tongue and that she might just cut a strip out of his hide with razor British wit. Then it had been because of that thing she could do with her tongue that had reduced him to a wordless moaning wreck on several occasions. Finally, now, he steeled himself because…well, he didn't really know why he was still coming back to her. she had told him she would make him suffer…and she had. For the past two months she had taken every gleeful opportunity to humiliate him, insult him, rebuff and reject him and there was only so much of that a man could take.

Even if it was from the woman he loved and she was feeling a little hormonal right now.

He had thought that she would let it go on for a month, maybe sixty days at the most, but they were rolling into day eighty four now and his patience was wearing thin.

He had tried everything. At first he had said nothing and taken every punch with a roll. Then he had tried arguing back, and that just seemed to make her worse. Finally he had simply given up. If she wanted to hate him then she would. There was nothing to do for it if she did. He had tried apologising. He had tried explaining. It felt like he'd tried to hold up the world for her and she'd been unimpressed. He didn't know what to do, he was at an end with it all.

He found her standing by the fireplace. She stood leaning forward. Her hands braced against the marble surround, leaning forward like she had just stopped herself from tumbling headlong into the flames. She knew he was there as easily as he could see her presence. He sighed. Another bitter conversation number 9367.

"Where were you?"

_Ding_. Round one commences. Ben sighed and pulled his cap off with one hand, rubbing his fingers through his chocolate brown hair. His green eyes dull with defeat as he stared at her back.

"Working, there was a problem with the wiring. I had to stay and figure it out." Then he waited. For the inevitable complaint. She would find something. She always did. Why hadn't he called? Ram had missed him at dinner. It had gotten cold. Did he want her to waste all this time cooking for him?

"Okay, dinner's in the oven."

Ben blinked. "What?"

She turned to look at him over her shoulder. "I said there's some dinner for you in the oven." Her eyes tracked over him, nearly lilac in the shadows of the room. "You look tired." She noted quietly and then turned back to the fire to stare down at whatever the flames were telling her.

Ben stood for a long uncertain moment and then shrugged out of his jacket. Slowly like he was afraid Carmen was a wild animal that he would spook into mauling him. That was what it had felt like the past few weeks in this apartment. He dropped it on the chair experimentally. It drove her insane, him leaving stuff lying around in a trail whenever he got back from the job. His hand hovered over the limp jacket a moment. Prepared to snatch it up at the least provocation.

Nothing.

He edged to the kitchen and then inside the small room. He stilled when his eyes landed on the table. It had been set for two. Two sets of plates and cutlery, two wine glasses filled, though he knew she wouldn't touch hers unless it was non-alcoholic and something delicious smelling wafting from the oven.

"Sit."

Ben nearly leaped three feet into the air at her quiet tone right at his ear. She held his jacket in one manicured hand and hung it on a hook without further reference to it. She gestured to one of the seats.

"Sit down, I'll get the plates."

Ben hesitantly sat and watched her when she went to the over and lifted out a tray filled with southern fried chicken. Mashed potatoes were ladled out of the pot onto the plates with the stuff and thick garlic gravy was poured over both helpings. Ben could only stare. It was his favourite meal and she had steadfastly refused to even consider eating it, never mind cook the damn thing.

"You made this? For me?" He asked when she set it down in front of him and then took her own chair. Her portion was considerably smaller than his but she looked an awful lot like she was going to eat it.

"I may not be able to cook as well as your mother and sister, Benicio, but I can follow a recipe." There was no rancour in her tone, even a slight smile as she said it. He watched as she delicately tore a strip of meat from the bone with her teeth, another thing she had refused to do, citing it grossly carnivorous, and chewed slowly before swallowing. Not one ounce of effort showed on her face though he knew this must be grating on every British stiff-upper-lip tendency in her. "I assure you that it is safe to try. I'm not about to go to all this effort just to poison you."

Ben still had no earthly idea what was going on. Who this was and what she had done with Carmen Queen Bitch but he couldn't help but have that warm feeling erupt in his chest at the sight of her old caring self again. She had never been overtly affectionate, not outside of the bedroom, but she had always had that wry self-deprecating humour when she had wanted him to laugh with her and it sounded a lot like what was coming out of her mouth right now.

So he ate.

Cautiously and watching her every move with tense scrutiny but it was the first civil meal they had shared together in…well, months, really. She finished hers long before he did his and she sat drinking her non-alcoholic wine and looking like she was trying to enjoy it.

He set his cutlery down with a clatter, most of his meal still left. "Alright, I give. Is this…? What is this?" He demanded and she stilled, her wine glass hovering in front of her mouth mid-sip.

"It's…forgiveness." She stared intently at her wine and swirled the golden liquid in the glass.

"You're finally forgiving me? After all this time? Why now?" Part of him was yelling to shut up and let the good times roll, but he had to know.

"No." She said slowly and then thumped her wine glass down with a slosh. She opened her mouth and then froze, apparently unsure of her next words. Ben watched her. Something was going on behind those big blue eyes. Something he had never seen before. It took him a moment to realise that it was something akin to shame.

"This is me…asking…for your forgiveness." She said it stilted, her mouth unused to shaping apologies.

Ben stared at her. Dumbfounded. He shrugged loosely. "Okay."

She arched a brow at him. "Okay?"

"Sure, I don't know what you think you've done, but whatever you want you can have it."

"You'd do that? Just…let it slide, out of hand?"

He shrugged again. "Yeah."

She tilted her head. "Why?"

Jeez, this conversation was more dangerous than their fights. He kept on thinking she was gonna blow at any minute and he'd be left scrambling for cover.

"I love you…that's what you do when you love someone. You forgive them." Something occurred to him then and he levelled his fork at her as if to hold her in place under his scrutiny. "If you've forgiven me then that means you love me." He told her and it was her turn to shrug.

"Obviously."

The fork clattered against the plate and he shot to his feet. Some hot and wild feeling coursing through his body too fast to name. "Say it." He demanded.

She looked up at him with a small smile. Her victory smile a small part of his brain announced. "Benicio Mikaela Cuddy; I love you." She said it simply, in that quiet tone of hers, looking up at him from the tiny kitchen she had been forced to live in since he had driven her from his house and he gaped at her. his entire world tilted on its axis. He had waited for so long for her to say it. Had begged for it with his eyes every time the words had left his own lips and now she had said it to him. Calmly, level-headed, not in the heat of passion when she could deny it later. She had admitted it.

And that was all that mattered.

Then she was in his arms, he had her held up against his chest, her long legs looped over one arm her slim shoulders caught in the other. His hand buried in her long luscious hair and his mouth hard against hers. Her fingers tangled into his curling hair and deepened the kiss.

Hot damn forgiveness had never felt so good.


	9. Chapter 9

**WRITTEN REAL QUICK AND UNBETA-ED**

**Bow ties & Baby's Breath Bouquets**

Carmen stretched languidly and smiled softly. The mattress dipped at her side and she felt more than saw her fiancé leaning over her. "Good morning." She murmured, her voice still thick with sleep.

"Good morning, somebody wants to see you."

Carmen's bright blue eyes fluttered open and she swept a fall of fiery golden hair out of her eye to peruse what exactly it was that she was supposed to be doing. The bright green eyes of her baby girl blinked at her and a smile broke out across her face. Meredith giggled a gummy grin and reached out for her mother. Carmen wriggled up onto the pillows and Ben settled their beautiful baby in her arms.

"Hey, beautiful-mine." She smiled down at Meredith and her baby babbled and waggled her fists in the air. Ben sprawled out beside them and anchored his arm around them both. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and inhaled the expensive salon scent of her shampoo. "You're not supposed to see me today, remember?" She turned to look at him and he ducked his head further into her skin. His tongue lapped her.

"Okay, I won't look."

Carmen laughed a throaty chuckle. "Uh-huh, I doubt that excuse will fly with your mother."

"Mom can go jump." Ben murmured against her and nibbled kisses up the column of her neck. "We're getting married in the big spectacle that she wanted. She can be quiet."

"I still can't believe those two ingrates got away with eloping." Carmen answered quietly in reference to the scandal of Lisa and Greg's marriage…or the lack thereof. They had both slipped off to a judge in their lunch hour and come back Mr and Mrs Dr Gregory House. Margo had damn near gone into apoplexy. She was eternally miffed that her only daughter had denied her the chance at throwing a big wedding…so Carmen had to step in to fill the void. She still shot Lisa a dirty look for it at every chance she got. Her sister in-law's reply was usually a smug grin.

"I think Margo's planning something epic." Carmen confided in her husband to-be. "No one gets away with meddling with Margo Cuddy's wishes."

"Lisa's always gotten away with it. Baby of the family and all that." He grinned at heer boyishly and she laughed again. She was looking forward to this. Waking up with him every morning. They had been 'engaged' for a terribly long time, until Margo had finally frog-marched Carmen down to the local parish and demanded, ahem, politely requested that Carmen finalise the damn date. Ben had been fine with it, of course. He knew that she loved him, she'd had his daughter, their beautiful baby, adopted Ram with him. In his eyes they were married in all ways but the final legal sense.

If Carmen were honest with herself, which she _was_ trying to do more often, then she would admit that she was still wary of him remembering who she was. A queen bitch from England, a gutter rat, someone who'd killed another person. It was always there in the back of her mind. Her father's cruel words could still occasionally haunt her. One did not just _forget_ an entire life of fighting to be better than they were. Ben helped of course, with his gentle acceptance of waiting for her. she suspected they could have stayed engaged for the rest of their natural lives and he would never have brought it up…but it had bothered Carmen. It had bothered her that someone else had needed to march her into the registry office and stand over her to get her to sign the date and time.

She didn't think that Ben was wrong for her. On the contrary, she thought he was probably the best thing in her life…it was that she still couldn't quite believe that she was worthy of him.

"What are you thinking about, wife?"

She stilled at his choice of words. He laughed against her skin again. "Get used to me calling you that, honey, because I'm going to be reminding you and everyone else at every damn opportunity." She smiled at him and told herself that she felt it right the way to her core.

She loved him so much…she just didn't know if he would feel that way forever, like she knew she would.

**$inister $cribe**

"Why are bowties so damn hard?"

"They're not, you're just an idiot."

"I am so glad to be giving you away."

Carmen's only reply was to grin up at her brother.

House scowled and pretended to be more annoyed than he was. Just because she was getting married today did not mean that he was going to be nice to her. He reserved the right to be less of an ass than usual but that was about it. He decided a few choice comments might wipe that huge grin off her face.

"I still can't believe you're wearing white." He intoned wryly and fidgeted with his tie some more. House thought a few choice words at the innocent scrap of material and considered flinging it out of the nearest window.

"I still can't believe you have a double specialty and can be outwitted by an inanimate scrap of cloth. Come here." Carmen stepped up behind her brother and reached over his shoulders to tie the bowtie for him. House huffed and fidgeted worse than Ram had when he'd been wrestled into his own wedding outfit. He looked adorable though.

Ram that was, not Greg. He was still being a pain in the ass without the endearing cuteness that her son had.

"See? It behaves for you." House growled and eyed them both in the mirror. They were both looking quite dashing today. Carmen wore her wedding dress that was 'ivory' not white. It gathered behind her neck and then draped down over her chest in a deep V of a neckline. The cut reminded him vaguely of the infamous Marilyn Monroe dress. He just had to keep her away from vents and they'd be fine. Pearls and golden beads had been painstakingly hand-stitched down the dress in a pattern reminiscent of raindrops racing down a window. Carmen turned away from him to fuss in another mirror with her hair. She wore it loose today and the dress was revealed to be practically backless.

"You know we're going to be in front of a priest, right? You'll have him converting back to a life of sin."

Carmen huffed a sigh. "Some of us like to dress up for the occasion and don't have the simple luck of being male."

House frowned. "I would think that Benny-boy might be particularly grateful for that little fact."

"I _meant_ that you just have to throw on a suit that looks vaguely tailored and the job is done. Some of us actually have to vary our outfits."

"Still, manly rumours aside, do I look good?" He pretended to preen in front of the mirror. She laughed at him and spun him around to do some last minute tie straightening. He watched her do it. Her blue eyes, the eyes they shared, sparkling as she focused at his throat. Her painted lips pulled into a bright smile. Her every movement shone with contentment, of happiness. Under that though. Under all of the excitement he could see it hidden in the back of her gaze. That little lump of doubt. Hard and constant like a stone anchored in the back of her mind. The same kernel of self disgust that their father had managed to instil in them both. He wouldn't let his old man take this away from her. It wasn't right. He may be shitty at this but he at least had to try. His hands had covered hers before he'd even realised what he'd done. Her smile slipped away.

"Greg, what is it?"

"You deserve this."

She blinked at him and his thumb rubbed over the back of her hand as he tried to communicate what he felt to her. He was still getting the hang of this big brother thing.

"You deserve to be happy. To have a normal family, well, as normal as it gets anyway."

She tilted her head at him and he realised he was screwing this up monumentally.

"I mean, just remember that when your pissed off or upset or something or thinking about your past because you do deserve this. You're worth him."

"Greg, that's…" She blinked rapidly and looked down. "That's beautiful." Her voice sounded suspiciously thick. He frowned at her.

"Are you crying?"

"No." The distinct sound of a suppressed sniffle. She slapped him on the chest. "You're going to ruin my make-up."

"You _are_ crying." He accused. Oh, Jesus H Christ in a basket he _had _screwed this up.

"I'm a woman it's our prerogative to cry at weddings." She sniffed and then looked back up at him. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. "I like you better when you're not being nice."

He smiled wryly at her. "I'll remember that."

"Now go! Find my husband and pry my daughter away from him to make sure he's actually getting dressed." She shoved him towards the door. He snatched up his cane and limped to obey. He thought about a sarcastic comment or two but decided to cut her some slack. It was her wedding day after all.

House limped out into the hall and down the corridor to find his own woman. He ran his thumb over the ring on his left hand and twirled it in a new habit he'd developed in the last year or so. He'd used to take it off and flip it up and down like a quarter but after one terrifying afternoon of nearly losing the simple white gold band and the thought of what his 'loving' wife might do to him in retaliation was enough to curb him of it. Nothing said 'I love you' like being forced to sleep on the couch three weeks into 'marital bliss'.

Speaking of certain wives, there was only one place she'd be. He pushed open the door to the nursery, which he had painstakingly decorated as he had said he would. The walls were a deep lilac colour with Niki painted flowers, faeries and anything else his son could come up with all over. Toys that Tonio had picked out were scattered everywhere and the furniture, an eclectic retro mix, was all his own doing. It was like no other nursery on earth and he liked it so.

His smile widened a fraction when he found the two most important women in his life in the room. Katy twisted in her mother's arms and laughed in sheer delight at seeing him.

"Dada!" She yelled and grasped at empty air as he limped over to her. Words were a new thing for Katy and she was quickly becoming as verbose as her father. Arguing over everything even if the word most often used was 'no'.

"Heya, daddy." Lisa watched their daughter's face as she spoke slowly and waved to Greg, showing Katy how it was done. Katy laughed and twinkled her fingers at her father in a baby clumsy effort at imitating her mother's graceful gesture. House could see her a decade from now, coltish and awkward, but she'd be beautiful to him. Just like her mother. Not that he'd be too brave about ever admitting such things but there was something to be said for the privacy of his own head.

"Heya, Katy." He grinned down at his year old daughter and gave her a finger to hold onto. "Heya, mommy." He told his wife and bent to kiss her. As usual, the kiss was not as brief as he'd intended it to be and it was eventually Katy's babbling that broke them apart. House couldn't find any rancour towards his daughter for it though. He denied it hotly when accused, but everybody knew that the little bundle in Lisa's arms had him wrapped around her little baby finger.

Lisa stepped close to him, her arm going around his waist and Katy between them so that she was cuddled against both their chests. Katy's favourite place to be. "How are preparations going for the happy couple?" She asked her free hand sliding up and down the back of his waistcoat. He was decked out in the full on tux. Ebony black with a royal blue shirt and a midnight blue waistcoat over that. He watched Lisa's eyes trail over him appreciatively. He had noticed, and he'd made a conscious effort to find out, that him in a dark shirt was particularly appealing to her. Dark blue drove her wild and he was invariably out of the shirt before he'd even finished putting it on properly. If anyone had noticed his wardrobe choices getting steadily darker, they knew better than to mention it.

Mental note; dark blue shirt plus tuxedo had her undressing him with her eyes and considering missing her brother's wedding.

Her eyes rose to meet his and he grinned. She knew that he knew what she was thinking and she scowled at him.

"That's not fair you know."

His reply was to reach around their daughter and trail a finger over the top curves of her bodice. "Neither is this. It would seem the House women are determined to send the clergy members into apoplexy."

"Well, if you don't like the dress I can change into something different." She swept away from him with a rustle from the trailing fabric of her, quite frankly, stunning dress. It was cut along similar lines to Carmen's but it was of a deep blue with similar beading to Carmen's dress but in silver and cobalt. It also had a more corsetly bodice to deal with Lisa's, ahem, fuller curves.

"I never said I didn't like it. I just thought you two sending the priest into a cardiac arrest might ruin the flow of the ceremony somewhat." He noted casually with a slight gleam in his eye. Pandering to her ego was nothing to be ashamed of if it improved his chances of getting lucky tonight. His wife was the only woman he knew of that had improved since the birth of her third child. Sure she was a little curvier, but he happened to like that.

Lisa hummed in the back of her throat and set Katy down in her crib. Their daughter babbled happily and waited until the mobile was switched on over her head to spin slowly and play some Beatles anthems. 'Yellow Submarine' was her favourite. Lisa turned back to him and sashayed over to him. That knowing gleam high in her aqua eyes. She reached up and smoothed imaginary dust specks off his suit.

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Dr House."

His arm came around her slim waist and his palm slid up over silky material until he could smooth over the warm satin of her skin. "Glad to hear it…" He tilted her chin up with his finger and his lips brushed hers…

"Daddy, daddy, daddy!"

He growled in the back of his throat at a kiss thwarted and then turned at the interruption. Three nine year olds in matching suits barrelled into the room with two flat coated retrievers in tow. Chaos reigned in a matter of seconds.

"Definitely a product of _your_ upbringing." Lisa murmured in his ear and he smirked. "You've yet to learn how to knock too."

"All part of my charm, honey." He smirked at her and then turned to his sons and nephew. "Alright, sprogs one through three, what is it?"

"Uncle Ben's standin' in the livin' room trying to get his tie thinger on right and it keeps goin all screwy and grandma can't help for laughin' and Uncle Ben keeps sayin' all those bad words that we know but aren't supposed to say in front of mom and he kicked the table." Niki, Tonio and Ram supplied this finishing each other's sentences and talking over one another. Teachers had come to dread this behaviour at the academy (usually employed when explaining why they were in trouble) and it took an extremely practiced ear to translate.

House winced and looked pointedly at his son. "Tonio, why aren't you supposed to know those bad words?"

"Coz if mamma knew she'd…" Tonio's eyes trailed to his mother. His frowning, arms crossed and foot a-tapping mother. "Oh." He said in a small voice. He looked to his partners in crime.

"Scatter?" Ram said.

Niki nodded hurriedly. "Scatter."

They all bolted. Feet thundering and dogs barking in hot pursuit.

"Guess I'd better get down there and…" House started for the door.

"Hold it."

He froze on a wince and turned slowly back to face his wife. "Yes?" He pasted on his innocent look and kept it there stubbornly in the face of her scowl.

"Those 'bad words that they're not supposed to know'?"

"An exaggeration on their part I'm sure." House supplied hurriedly and her eyes narrowed. A danger sign if ever there was.

"What do they know?"

"Hey, it wasn't me that taught them! It wasn't my fault they were there for your labour."

"They weren't _there_, they were down the hall!" Lisa argued back.

"Yeah, but that blue streak you were swearing had sailors running out of bars all over Princeton!" He argued back. "Brenda still isn't the same."

She was working very hard not to laugh now but her righteous indignation wouldn't allow her to cave.

"You are not pinning this on me I –mmff!" Her tirade was cut off by his mouth coming down over hers. Just like that anything they had been arguing about had been postponed to a later date. She moaned into his mouth and tunnelled her fingers through his hair. Damn but that husband of hers knew how to kiss.

Then he was gone. Lisa staggered slightly and watched him limp from the nursery and down the hallway with dazed lust heavy eyes. It took her a full minute to realise what he had just done. Her heeled foot stomped down onto the carpet.

"Goddamnit!" She cursed to the mostly empty room.

"Gaddamit!" Katy bounced in her crib and Lisa dropped her head into her palm. He was never going to let her live this down.

**$inister $cribe**

"Okay, Carmen, you can do this…" Carmen heaved in a breath and fanned herself with her bouquet. She could do this. Of course she could do this. It was…what? Fifty feet to the alter set up in the back yard of the Stable-House? Not that far. She could walk that. Ben was standing right there, see?

"Oooooh Jesus, I'm in trouble." Carmen muttered to herself and resumed her pacing.

"Hey, bride, how you doing?"

"Fine!"

Lisa blinked at the extremely high pitch that had just issued from her friend's throat. "Okay, I don't think even the dogs heard that."

"I'm good. It's fine." Carmen was nodding far too much and she couldn't quite seem to make herself stop. "Just…last minute nerves. Oh for Gods sake, go before my voice gets any higher." She tried to wave Lisa away, the last thing she needed right now was someone asking her if she was alright. God only knew how she'd answer.

"Carmen, calm down. It's so simple." Lisa gripped Carmen's shoulders and forcibly stilled her. "You walk down the aisle. You get to the alter. He's standing right there." She met her friend's eyes and Carmen nodded. "Okay? Now I'm going to send Greg down to walk up with you, alright?"

Carmen didn't trust herself to speak so settled for nodding. Lisa smiled and then disappeared in a swish of fabric to take her place just down from the priest at the alter. She was right, this was simple. Carmen had locked away murderers, exposed frauds and criminals of all persuasions, she could damn well turn up at her own wedding.

Carmen began to pace again. What had Lisa said? Oh yeah.

"Aisle…alter…him." Carmen told herself and repeated it a few times as a mantra for courage. "Aisle, alter, him, aisle, alter, him, aisle, alter, him…"

"You'll alter who?"

Carmen nearly leapt five feet in the air and turned to find Ben standing in front of her in his cream tuxedo. He looked gorgeous. Ivory fabric contrasted with the deep blue of his shirt.

"You okay?"

Carmen nodded. A lot.

"No you're not, you're shaking…" His eyes met hers. "We don't have to do this."

"What?" Carmen could only stare.

Ben shrugged. "If you don't want to, we can go."

Carmen blinked. "What?" She asked again. "Your family's here. Hell, I think half of America's here. They're all kind of expecting a wedding."

Ben shrugged. "I'm not doing this for them."

"Huh?" Carmen knew that when she looked back on this crippled verbosity she was going to die off from embarrassment…but right now her brain had other things to deal with.

"Babe…if you don't want to get married, I'm not going to force you. I'd much rather you stayed with me out of choice than because you felt legally bound to." He took her cold hands in his warm ones. "I know I'm not going anywhere and I'm in no hurry to drive you away." He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, his eyes never leaving hers. "If you wanna leave, we can blow this popsicle stand in a matter of minutes." He winked at her. "If not, I'm the one in the stupid suit up front." He leant down and brushed a kiss over her mouth. "Bye."

Carmen watched him go, dumbfounded. "Bye." She murmured a few seconds later.

Greg appeared at her side. He offered her his arm. "You ready, kid?"

Carmen was still looking up the aisle to where Ben was standing by the priest's side. He was looking up at the sky, smiling to himself without a worry in the world. The wind tousled his hair and he rocked onto his toes and then back onto his heels in that way he did when he was completely at peace with existence. If he'd been in his jeans he'd have hooked one of his thumbs in his jeans' pocket.

"Carmen?" Greg spoke but she heard him from far away. Her mind was racing.

She could go. She could leave. She could run from this like she'd been running from her past for her whole life…or she could stop. She could finally stop and face who she was…with Ben. With the man she loved who loved her back.

She turned and looked up at her brother with a smile that could have put the sun to shame on the balmy July afternoon. Her arm linked through his.

"Yeah, I'm ready, let's do this."

House just shook his head as if the workings of the female mind was completely beyond him and started down the aisle to give his sister away.

**The End**

**Aaaaawwww, weren't it cuuute?**

**I make myself sick sometimes. I don't really think this is any good but it's the last chapter and we all know how I suck at endings. Um, I just wanted this one finished so I could post my new one. **

**As soon as I decide on the title for it I shall. **

**Um, thanks for all the reviews on this one. Thanks for putting up with me forgetting about it and I hope you check out some of my other stories both old an new. **

**Cheers, $cribe.**

**XOX**


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